Ethi 


F^ELIGION 


W. /n,  5al,T!':k 


GIFT  or 

Professor  O.    R,    Noyes 


(^ 


i   L^^-^ 


Ethical   Religion. 


BY 


WILLIAM    MACKINTIRE    SALTER. 


r 


BOSTON: 

ROBERTS     BROTHERS. 

1889. 


-^^v^'^'^ 
s^ 


Copyright,  1889, 
By  William  Mackintire  Salter. 


ovke^ 


i'"  't   *    1-^     t    ,^     ^    '  <  '  •    •   »  V  *    t    "1 


John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge. 


<p/ 


TO 
FELIX    ABLER, 

GEORG  VON  GIZYCKI,  AND  EDWIN  D.  MEAD, 

THIS    BOOK 
IS    GRATEFULLY   AND    AFFECTIONATELY  INSCRIBED. 


M  5515 


PREFACE. 


IT  is  only  fair  to  any  one  who  may  take  up  this 
book,  to  say  that  it  is  made  up  of  lectures 
given,  for  the  most  part,  before  the  Society  for 
Ethical  Culture  of  Chicago.  It  is  due  to  my  col- 
leagues in  the  Ethical  Movement  to  say  that  they 
are  not  responsible  for  the  views  here  expressed, 
that  the  book  nowise  claims  to  represent  the  Move- 
ment, but  simply  reflects  my  own  attitude  of  mind 
upon  the  various  topics  treated.  Even  in  discuss- 
ing "  The  Basis  of  the  Ethical  Movement,"  I  but 
give  my  own  interpretation  of  it.  The  bond  of 
union  between  the  lecturers,  as  between  the  mem- 
bers, of  Ethical  Societies  is  not  a  speculative  but 
a  moral  one.  I  must  add,  however,  tliat  my  own 
intellectual  indebtedness  to  Professor  Adler  is  so 
great  that  it  would  be  difficult  to  measure  it.  Many 
of  the  thoughts  in  this  volume  —  probably  the  best 
ones  —  are  really  his  thoughts ;  he  has  given  me, 
or  at  least  quickened  in  my  mind,  ideas  that  will 
never  go  from  me,  that  are  a  part  of  my  better 
self.    As  I  have  gone   over  the  proof-sheets  of 


11  PREFACE. 

these  pages,  I  have  felt  afresh  how  deep  and  con- 
stant are  my  obligations  to  him. 

An  occasional  criticism  which  a  German  trans- 
lation of  some  of  these  lectures  ^  received,  leads 
me  at  the  outset  to  disclaim  for  this  volume  any 
scientific  pretensions.  It  is  not  even  a  connected 
series  of  discourses ;  there  are  repetitions  in  it. 
These  lectures  were  not  written  in  the  first  place 
for  publication  at  all,  but  to  quicken,  if  they  might, 
the  thoughts  and  lives  of  those  to  whom  they  were 
orally  addressed.  There  is  possibly  one  lecture, 
"  What  is  a  Moral  Action  ?"  which,  as  an  attempt 
to  analyze  and  fix  a  conception,  may  be  thought 
to  have  some  scientific  worth.  After  writing  it, 
I  was  gratified  to  learn  that  Aristotle  had  made 
a  somewhat  similar  analysis,  —  though  the  master 
says  in  a  few  words  what  I  spread  out  in  as  many 
pages.2  But  had  I  attempted  to  write  a  philoso- 
phical treatise,  the  whole  method  would  have  been 
different.  I  should  then  perhaps  have  been  able  to 
clear  up  some  of  the  confusion  and  inconsistencies 
with  which  my  thoughts  may  seem  to  be  involved. 
For  example,  I  should  have  attempted  to  explain 

^  Published  under  the  title,  "  Die  Religion  der  Moral," 
translated  by  [Professor  Dr.]  Georg  von  Gizycki,  Leipzig  and 
Berlin,  Wilhelm  Friedrich,  1885.  A  Dutch  translation  of 
the  same,  by  the  hand  of  the  Rev.  P.  H.  Hugenholtz,  Jr., 
of  Amsterdam,  appeared  in  1888  under  the  title,  "  Zedelijke 
Religie,"  Amsterdam,  Tj.  van  Holkema. 

^  See  the  Nicomachean  Ethics,  ii.  4,  §  3. 


PREFACE.  iii 

my  inability  to  assent  either  to  theism  on  tlie  one 
hand  or  to  positivism  on  the  other ;  I  should  have 
sought  to  reconcile  varying  points  of  view  in  speak- 
ing of  religion,  God,  ethics,  Christianity ;  I  should 
have  attempted  particularly  to  develop  my  own 
theory  of  ethics,  which  I  cannot  call  either  Utili- 
tarian or  Intuitional.  I  say  "  attempted,"  for  I 
do  not  assume  that  my  intellectual  positions  are 
necessarily  final  and  complete  ;  speaking  from  my 
own  brief  experience,  the  intellectual  life  is  one  of 
change  and  progress,  and  it  is  possible  that  in  at- 
tempting to  state  my  views  philosophically,  I  should 
be  led  somewhat  to  modify  and  enlarge  them. 

My  purpose  in  allowing  this  book  to  come  be- 
fore the  public  is  not  intellectual,  but  practical  and 
moral.  I  do  not  ask  scholars  to  read  it,  but  men 
and  women  who  are  in  the  midst  of  the  stress  of 
life.  My  only  fear  is  that  it  may  be  too  scholastic 
for  the  latter  class,  as  I  know  it  lacks  too  much  in 
thoroughness  and  precision  to  satisfy  the  former. 
But  if  it  should  by  chance  refresh  or  invigorate,  or 
help  to  refine,  the  moral  life  of  any  one  who  reads 
it ;  if  it  should  stir  in  any  one  a  divine  discontent 
with  himself  and  the  state  of  society  about  him ; 
if  it  should  give  any  one  courage  to  fight  with  the 
evil  and  contend  for  the  good  in  the  world ;  if  it 
should  nourish  any  one's  secret  hope  that  there 
is  but  one  outcome  of  the  course  and  evolution 
of  things,  namely,  the  victory  of  the  good,  —  if  it 


iv  PREFACE. 

should  thus  make  any  one  more  gladly  co-operate 
with  the  Deep  Tendency  of  Things,  then  I  should 
count  myself  happy  indeed. 

I  wish  to  thank  Mr.  A.  W.  Stevens,  of  Cambridge, 
for  valuable  counsels  and  assistance  as  the  book 
was  passing  through  the  press. 

W.  M.  S. 
Chicago,  March,  1889. 


CONTENTS. 


Page 

I.    Ethical  Religion 7 

II.    The  Ideal  Element  in  Morality    ...  22 

III.    What  is  a  Moral  Action? 42 

ly.    Is  THERE  a  Higher  Law? 59 

V.    Is  THERE  Anything  Absolute  about  Mo- 
rality?      83 

VI.    Darwinism  in  Ethics 102 

•*  VII.    The  Social  Ideal 121 

VIII.    The  Rights  of  Labor 142 

IX.    Personal  Morality 159 

X.    On  some  Features  of  the  Ethics  of  Jesus  179 
XI.    Does   the   Ethics   of  Jesus   satisfy  the 

Needs  of  our  Time? 200 

XII.    Good  Friday  from  a  Modern  Standpoint  227 

XIII.  The   Success  and   the  Failure  of  Prot- 

estantism      244 

XIV.  Why  Unitarianism  fails  to  satisfy   .     .  266 
XV.    The  Basis  of  the  Ethical  Movement      .  287 

XVI.    The  Supremacy  of  Ethics 304 

XVII.    The  true  Basis  of  Religious  Union    .     .  319 


ETHICAL   EELIGION. 


ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

THE  moral  nature  is  that  by  which  we  transcend 
ourselves  and  enter  into  an  ideal  region.  Sci- 
ence, with  its  methods  of  observation  and  experiment, 
is  limited  to  the  world  as  it  is.  Ethics  is  essentially 
the  thought  of  what  ought  to  be.  It  is  not  an  account 
of  man  as  he  is,  nor  is  it  a  transcript  and  summary 
abstract  of  the  facts  of  society  ;  it  declares  the  law 
after  which  man  should  act,  and  in  obedience  to  which 
society  should  be  constituted.  Ethics,  in  a  word,  holds 
up  the  picture  of  our  ideal  selves,  and  gives  us  back 
society  transfigured.  Eor  man  has  two  sides  to  his 
nature,  —  one  looking  out  on  what  is,  the  other  on 
the  better  that  might  be.  It  is  a  meritorious  task  to 
analyze  the  body  and  brain  and  mind  of  man ;  to  ex- 
plore conscientiously  and  classify  systematically  the 
facts  of  human  society.  But  psychology  and  sociol- 
ogy do  not  take  the  place  of  ethics,  nor  even  give  its 
indispensable  foundation.  In  the  strict  sense  of  the 
word,  science  —  the  science  of  man  as  truly  as  any 
other  —  knows  nothing  of  right  and  wrong,  but  only 
of  what  is ;  of  facts,  and  the  law  of  their  connection. 


8  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

To  the  pure  understanding,  virtue  and  vice  do  not 
exist.  These  notions  arise  in  virtue  of  our  judgment 
upon  facts  ;  and  the  organ  of  that  judgment  is  other 
than  that  by  which  we  learn  of  and  explain  the  facts 
themselves  ;  men  call  it  Conscience.  It  pronounces 
.  upon  th6  wortli  of  facts  ;  for  they  may  sometimes 
seem  as  firm  as  the  earth  and  as  constant  as  day 
aTJ.d  ni,ght. 'ahd  yet  have  no  moral  right  to  be.  Such 
are '  injustice,  Unscrupulous  self-assertion,  wrong,  — 
though  they  may  be  continuoiis  with  the  course  of 
history;  and  all  the  laws  and  institutions  created 
under  their  influence  are  without  binding  force  or 
obligation. 

The  safety  and  sanity  of  life  consist  in  keeping  in 
mind  the  higher  ends  and  laws  of  our  existence. 
For  man  is  not  only  to  know,  but  to  do  and  to  achieve. 
Strange,  is  it  not,  that  man  should  not  be  content 
with  what  he  sees ;  that  he  should  turn  his  back  on 
the  known  and  familiar  in  search  of  something  bet- 
ter ;  that  he  should  stake  his  life  sometimes  on  a  hope 
or  dream  of  his  mind  ?  Yet  this,  too,  belongs  to  man : 
it  is  the  ideal  ends  of  human  life  calling  on  him  for 
their  accomplishment ;  and  he,  simple  and  loyal,  does 
not  fail  to  hear. 

Ethical  religion  would  turn  men's  thoughts  this 
way.  It  would  inspire  to  a  new  confidence  in  ideas. 
It  would  be  essentially  a  practical  religion,  —  not  prac- 
tical and  ideal,  but  practical  because  ideal.  It  would 
lay  on  men  a  burden,  assign  to  them  a  task,  —  a  bur- 
den the  only  relief  from  which  is  in  action ;  a  task 
which  is  unescapable  till  it  be  accomplished.  Like  an 
architect's  plan,  an  idea  means  nothing  in  itself:  it 
proposes  a  new  form  of  life,  as  the  plan  involves  a  new 


ETHICAL  RELIGION.  9 

structure.  For  as  the  artist,  whose  soul  images  some 
form  of  the  beautiful,  seizes  the  brush  or  the  chisel  to 
portray  it ;  as  the  thinker's  burning  thoughts  drive  him 
to  utterance,  —  so  in  the  truly  moral  nature  every  idea 
of  the  good  becomes  a  necessity,  every  thought  of  the 
higher  a  command ;  all  that  we  dream  of  and  that 
seems  so  far  away  becomes  an  end  and  goal  for  our 
action  and  our  life.  Yet  how  rarely  is  the  full  prac- 
tical significance  of  the  ideal  side  of  human  nature 
realized !  In  what  illusions  do  men  permit  them- 
selves in  thinking  of  the  ideal ! 

First,  there  is  the  a3Sthetic  or  sentimental  mistake. 
Men  wander  into  an  ideal  region  to  luxuriate  there. 
The  good  is  an  object  of  delight ;  they  contemplate  it, 
love  it,  worship  it,  they  say,  —  do  everything  but  obey 
it.  Much  of  the  religion  of  our  day,  orthodox  and 
other,  is  but  a  kind  of  spiritual  revelling,  wherein 
men  allow  themselves  the  use  of  all  kinds  of  fine  sen- 
timents and  phrases,  yet  after  which  life  is  as  flat  as 
ever.  This  is  unpractical  id«ealism,  but  only  because 
it  is  false  idealism.  That  ideas  are  but  the  pattern 
after  which  we  are  to  fashion  our  lives  is  not  realized ; 
the  element  of  respect  for  them  is  wanting.  If  a  man 
is  not  in  the  mood  to  act,  if  he  will  not  become  better, 
let  him  not  think  the  ideas  of  the  better  at  all.  It 
is  a  kind  of  profaning  of  them  to  face  them,  and  not 
begin  to  act  as  they  command. 

Closely  akin  to  this  aesthetic  or  sentimental  mistake 
is  the  philosophical  mistake  of  regarding  the  ideal  as 
another  world  alongside  of  the  actual  world.  It  is  so 
easy  to  those  who  are  accustomed  to  deal  with  ideas 
to  think  of  them  as  real,  substantial  things.  They 
become  so  familiar  with  them  that  the  natural  order 


10  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

of  human  thought  is  inverted ;  and  the  ideas  are 
spoken  of  as  real,  and  the  actual  world  as  an  appear- 
ance. This  seems  to  have  been  the  Platonic  view. 
Goodness,  justice,  —  moral  ideas,  as  well  as  all  others, 
Plato  looked  at  as  self-existent,  independent  entities. 
The  ideal  world  was  another  literal  world  like  our 
own,  only  more  perfect.  If  this  were  so,  what  should 
we  have  to  do  but  to  lift  our  thoughts  to  that  ideal 
world,  and  there  find  the  rest  and  peace  that  are 
denied  to  us  here  ? 

That  might  be  one  kind  of  religion ;  but  surely  it 
would  not  be  a  practical  religion.  And  what  is  more, 
it  would  be  an  illusory  religion ;  for  there  is  no  such 
ideal  world  as  Plato  pictures.  The  Platonic  world  in 
its  moral  aspect  is  nothing  more  than  the  world  as  we 
should  like  to  see  it,  the  world  as  it  ought  to  be.  It 
is  in  truth  nothing  but  an  ideal  for  our  world  ;  and  to 
transform  this  actual  order  of  our  human  life  into  an 
image  of  it  would  be  the  task  of  a  practical  religion. 
The  truest  word  that  could  be  addressed  to  us  is,  If 
thou  wilt  ever  see  the  perfect,  thou  must  create  it ; 
till  that  time,  thou  rangest  over  the  earth  or  through 
the  heavens  in  vain  !  The  idea  only  of  perfection  is 
in  us ;  the  perfect  itself  is  to  be.  Men  ask,  Can  we  be 
satisfied  with  such  a  view ;  can  we  be  content  to  regard 
all  that  is  higher  and  better  only  as  a  thought  of  our 
minds  ?  But  a  noble  mind  does  not  first  ask.  What  is 
satisfactory  ?  but,  What  is  true  ?  And  I  am  sure  that 
one  who  has  been  caught  up  by  the  thought  of  the 
higher,  and  felt  that  the  burden  and  the  glory  of  ac- 
complishing it  rested  upon  him,  would  feel  the  rich- 
est satisfactions  denied  him  if  told  that  the  higher 
was   already  real,  and  he   had  only  to  open   some 


ETHICAL  RELIGION.  11 

fancied  spiritual  eyes  to  discern  it.  What  meaning, 
what  significance,  would  there  be  in  our  lives,  with 
grand  thought  and  purpose  stirred,  to  learn  that  that 
which  we  were  to  do  is  already  accomplished  ?  "  Cer- 
tainly, cousin,"  said  the  gallant  Earl  of  Pembroke,  on 
coming  up  to  the  Earl  of  Derby  before  Auberoche,  and 
finding  the  battle  already  won,  "you  have  neither 
been  courteous  nor  behaved  honorably  to  fight  my 
enemies  without  waiting  for  me,  seeing  that  you  had 
sent  for  me."  That  is  an  unsatisfactory  view  of  life 
which  leaves  us  nothing  to  do,  which  fixes  on  us  no 
great  responsibilities,  which  encircles  us  with  no  grand 
trusts.  In  truth,  in  our  heart  of  hearts,  we  want  to 
do,  we  want  to  dare ;  we  do  not  care  even  to  be  as- 
sured of  victory  ;  there  is  a  profound  something  in  us 
which  disdains  the  need  of  such  assurances. 

And  as  the  philosophical  mistake  is  to  the  highest 
type  of  mind  not  only  untrue  and  delusive,  but  un- 
satisfactory rather  than  satisfactory,  so  is  the  theo- 
logical mistake.  Theology  gathers  all  our  thoughts 
of  the  higher  and  better  together,  and  conceives  them 
in  the  form  of  a  perfect  person  who  rules  and  guides 
the  world.  There  is  a  noble  side  to  theology :  I 
mean,  of  course,  not  as  savages  or  narrow  bigots,  but 
as  pure  and  lofty  souls  have  conceived  it.  God  is  the 
perfect ;  there  are  no  limitations,  no  failings  there,  — 
measureless  goodness,  infinite  justice,  make  up  that 
image  of  the  mind.  And  if  the  only  alternative  were 
between  the  world  as  it  is,  with  no  thought  of  any- 
thing above  it  by  which  to  try  it,  and  this  lofty  ideal 
of  excellence  which  might  be  ever  kept  in  mind,  I  do 
not  see  how  we  could  hesitate  in  pronouncing  which 
would  be  the  better.     We  miLst  look  on  all  that  is 


12  ETHICAL  KELIGION. 

from  some  ideal  stand-point ;  we  must  keep  in  our 
minds  some  high  and  unfailing  standard  of  excel- 
lence ;  and  until  provision  is  made  for  this  in  the 
new  order  of  things,  the  old  belief  will  remain,  and 
deserve  to  remain.  For  man  has  these  two  sides  to 
his  nature,  of  which  I  have  spoken,  and  the  most  per- 
fect knowledge  of  what  is  will  not  take  the  place  of 
the  thought  of  what  ought  to  be.  But  the  noble  side 
of  theology  is  easily  disengaged  from  theology  itself. 
When  one  ceases  to  believe  in  God  in  the  ordinary 
sense,  one  does  not  need  to  drop  flat  to  the  world  and 
life  as  we  see  them  and  know  them.  All  that  made 
that  image  admirable  remains,  —  all  those  higher 
qualities  that  we  instinctively  call  divine  and  that 
mankind  instinctively  worships,  wherever  any  hint  or 
suggestion  of  them  appears  in  human  form,  —  good- 
ness, pity,  boundless  charity,  unfailing  justice. 

We  do  not  find  these  in  the  world,  we  do  not  see 
them  in  ourselves  ;  and  so,  foolish  creatures  that  we 
are,  we  jump  to  the  conclusion  that  they  are  in  an- 
other world,  that  they  belong  to  God.  And  here  is 
the  ignoble  side  to  theology ;  for  not  only  is  the  per- 
sonal Deity  of  theology  illusory,  but  by  gathering  the 
divine  qualities  into  a  form  outside  of  man,  it  allows 
us  to  forget  that  they  are  qualities  for  man,  and  reli- 
gion becomes  the  worship  of  something  already  exist- 
ing, instead  of  the  sense  of  a  burden  and  a  task.  We 
are  to  become  divine  :  we  are  to  make  this  world  a 
scene  of  justice.  All  that  men  have  gathered  into  the 
form  of  a  God  is  but  the  image  of  our  possible  selves. 
We  make  a  myth  of  love  and  justice,  when  we  say 
that  they  are  actually  ruling  in  the  world,  as  Chris- 
tian believers  hold;  or  as  Emerson  says,  that  "though 


ETHICAL  RELIGION.  13 

ministers  of  justice  fail,  justice  never/'  and  that  the 
ethical  laws  are  self-executing,  instantaneous.^  Justice 
is  forever  failing  in  the  world.  Whenever  ministers 
of  justice  fail,  it  fails ;  for  it  acquires  a  real  existence 
only  in  those  who  execute  it.  Aside  from  them,  it 
is  only  what  ought  to  be,  nothing  that  is.  There  are 
no  self-executing,  instantaneous,  ethical  laws;  though 
one  might  well,  when  one  thinks  of  all  the  unrequited 
wrong  there  is  in  the  world,  wish  to  heaven  that  there 
w^ere.  The  laws  are  over  us,  but  they  wait  for  us  to 
execute  them :  they  are  shorn  of  their  intent,  as 
our  lives  are  of  their  significance,  if  we  do  not  exe- 
cute them.  We  can  only  say  that  the  ethical  laws 
should  rule  in  all  our  lives,  that  justice  forever  calls 
for  ministers ;  and  of  love,  not  that  it  is  supreme  in 
the  world,  but  let  love,  as  Buddha  said,  even  the  love 
that  fills  the  mother's  heart  as  she  watches  over  an 
only  child,  animate  all.  For  the  ideal  itself  of  the 
old  religions  is  not  essentially  different  from  that  of 
the  new.  The  old  however  say.  The  ideal  does  rule  : 
the  new  will  say.  Let  it  rule !  The  old  religions  ap- 
pear to  open  to  us  the  secrets  of  what  lies  behind  the 
veil :  the  new  will  take  those  august  secrets,  and  make 
them  in  all  their  grandeur  the  aim  and  the  rule  of  hu- 
man life.  The  old  religions  leave  us  on  our  knees  in 
rapt  contemplation  and  worship  :  the  new  "will  sum- 
mon us  to  stand  erect,  and  to  believe  that  all  that  men 
have  worshipped,  all  that  they  have  dreamed  of,  all 
that  has  seemed  so  far  above  them  and  beyond  them, 
men  and  women  in  the  future  are  to  become  and  to 
realize. 

But  why,  if  man's  ideals  do  not  reveal  anything 
1  The  Preacher. 


14  ETHICAL  EELIGION. 

outside  ourselves,  but  only  indicate  what  we  ourselves 
should  be  and  do,  —  why  do  we  speak  of  devotion  to 
them  as  religion  at  all  ?  I  do  not  covet  that  word, 
and  disbelieve  in  all  the  prevailing  forms  of  religion. 
I  do  not  begin  with  any  attempt  to  compromise  with 
them.  And  yet  I  am  driven  to  speak  of  religion,  — 
not  indeed  in  the  common  way,  as  of  something  ad- 
ditional to  morality,  but  of  morality  as  religion. 

This  may  be  made  evident  in  two  ways.  Eeligion 
from  the  purely  human  side  might  be  defined  as  man's 
supreme  interest :  whoever  has  an  absorbing  concern 
may  be  said  to  have  a  religion.  We  often  hear  per- 
sons spoken  of  as  religiously  devoted  to  some  object, 
religiously  faithful  in  some  attention,  some  regard, 
some  affection.  There  are  those  who  have  memories 
that  are  to  them  a  religion,  —  statesmen  to  whom  the 
service  of  their  country  has  been  a  religion,  reformers 
who  give  their  lives  and  fortunes  in  religious  devotion 
to  the  service  of  some  idea.  Those  who  care  for  no 
one  thing  more  than  another,  who  have  no  enthusiasm, 
who  are  listless  and  cannot  be  conceived  as  rising  to 
any  height  of  self-devotion,  —  these  are  properly  the 
irreligious  people  of  any  time.  In  vain  would  the 
most  perfect  theory  of  life  and  the  universe  be  called 
a  religion,  if  it  could  not  stir  the  souls  of  men,  if  it 
could  not  take  hold  of  life  and  mould  it  into  higher 
forms.  If  morality  then,  —  if  the  thought  of  the  good 
becomes  supreme  over  all  other  thoughts  in  the  minds 
of  any,  if  it  enlists  their  feelings  and  masters  their 
life,  it  is  their  religion.  I  believe,  indeed,  that  there 
is  no  other  thought  that  wins  so  instinctive  a  reverence 
as  this  of  the  good ;  that  conceptions  of  the  Deity  and 
plans  for  a  truer  society  take  deep  hold  of  men  only 


ETHICAL   RELIGION.  15 

as  they  in  some  sense  image  or  embody  it.  The 
question  whether  morality  can  become  a  religion  for 
men  in  general,  is  the  question  whether  men  in  gen- 
eral are  capable  of  unselfish  admiration ;  whether 
they  can  love  the  good  unmoved  by  personal  fears 
and  hopes,  because  it  is  the  good,  and  has  an  intrin- 
sic charm  for  them.  I  do  not  doubt  it.  I  believe  we 
ordinarily  think  too  meanly  of  man.  The  higher  na- 
ture is  in  us  all :  it  is  not  often  appealed  to,  and  it 
is  perhaps  for  this  very  reason  that  human  life  re- 
mains on  so  low  a  level.  Let  a  new  religion  arise 
which  should  dare  to  take  man  at  his  best,  which 
should  summon  him  to  justice  and  generosity  and 
all  nobleness,  solely  because  these  are  his  true  and 
proper  life,  and  I  believe  the  world  would  be  as- 
tonished at  the  answer. 

But  religion  may  also  be  defined  from  the  objective 
side.  In  this  aspect,  it  is  man's  relation  with  what  is 
ultimate  and  supreme  in  the  world.  The  truest  reli- 
gion would  be  that  one  in  which  the  supreme  interest 
gathers  about  that  which  is  really  supreme  and  ulti- 
mate in  the  world.  Now,  morality,  truly  interpreted, 
does  bring  man  into  contact  with  the  final  nature  of 
things.  Whatever  else  I  may  doubt  about,  I  cannot 
doubt  the  law  of  duty,  —  that  there  is  a  right  and  a 
wrong ;  that  the  right  obliges  me,  that  I  ought  to  do  it. 
It  makes  no  difference  that  I  have  learned  this  law,  that 
others  have  learned  it  before,  that  I  know  little  more 
about  it  than  I  have  received  or  been  taught ;  it  makes 
no  difference  that  I  do  not  know  it  now  perfectly,  that 
I  may  err  sometimes  in  my  judgments  about  it.  Still, 
I  am  sure,  as  Pprothea  in  the  story  was,^  that  there  is 
1  Middlerijarch. 


16  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

a  perfect  right  if  I  could  only  find  it.  Sometimes  I 
wish  to  do  the  right ;  and  sometimes,  again,  it  seems 
hard,  forbidding,  and  I  do  not  wish  to  do  it.  But  the 
right  itself  does  not  change  with  my  wishes  and  wants. 
I  might  unlearn  it ;  I  might,  under  the  solicitations  of 
some  desire  or  passion,  juggle  myself  into  the  belief 
that  it  no  longer  existed.  Yet  the  right  would  not 
itself  cease  because  my  thought  of  it  ceased.  I  might 
die  and  others  take  my  place,  yet  the  right  would  ex- 
ist for  them  as  truly  as  it  had  existed  for  me.  When- 
ever, wherever,  two  persons  arise  and  look  into  each 
other's  faces,  the  law  of  mutual  reverence  and  respect 
—  the  law  of  justice  we  call  it  —  obtains.  If  they  do 
not  own  it,  it  is  the  law  all  the  same  ;  if  they  act  con- 
trary to  it,  and  defy  every  prescription  of  it,  it  is  the 
law  all  the  same.  Plainly,  men  do  not  make  this  law, 
but  simply  find  it.  If  there  are  other  rational  beings 
than  men,  it  applies  to  them  just  as  truly  ;  the  law  is 
a  universal  law  for  all  rational  intelligence.  As  little 
do  the  earth  and  the  stars  make  the  law  of  gravitation 
which  they  obey,  as  does  man  or  the  combined  host  of 
rational  beings  throughout  the  universe  make  the  law 
of  duty.  And  though  no  God  were,  as  God  is  ordi- 
narily conceived,  the  law  would  not  cease  to  be.  It  is 
not  made,  and  cannot  be  changed  by  God  or  man ;  it 
belongs  to  the  nature  of  things.  Yes,  more  truly  than 
the  law  of  gravitation  does  it  belong  there.  I  can  see 
no  necessity  in  the  law  of  gravitation ;  I  can  conceive 
that  there  might  be  a  different  law  than  this  according 
to  which  bodies  attract  one  another  directly  as  their 
mass  and  inversely  as  the  square  of  their  distance 
from  one  another.  But  no  other  law  is  conceivable 
for  rational  beings  than  that  of  justice,  of  mutual 


ETHICAL   RELIGION.  17 

reverence  and  respect ;  never  conceivably  could  it 
become  right  to  think  lightly  of  another  human 
or  any  rational  being.  And  yet  men  have  failed  in 
reverence,  in  respect,  for  others ;  have  unblushingly 
used  others,  are  so  failing  and  using  them  to-day. 
How  rarely  has  the  law  been  obeyed  !  The  law  is 
over  all,  though  it  were  never  obeyed. 

In  this  way  morality  becomes  religion.  He  alone 
does  a  genuinely  moral  act  who  does  it  because  he 
must,  because  the  nature  of  things  bears  down  upon 
him  to  do  it.  For  the  crystal,  religion  would  be  to 
become  a  crystal ;  to  own  the  pressure  that  would  yield 
the  perfect  form.  For  man,  it  can  only  be  to  be  a  man, 
to  perform  the  human  part  of  the  universal  task.  Mo- 
rality is  simply  one  form  of  the  universal  law ;  and  in 
the  yielding  to  its  demands  man  is  lifted  out  of  him- 
self, and  as  the  tides  of  ocean  throb  "  respondent  to 
the  far-off  orbs,"  so  do  his  pulses  beat  in  unison  with 
the  movement  of  the  universe.  Yet  how  little  is  the 
transcendent  significance  of  morality  realized  in  these 
days  !  How  often  are  divine  and  eternal  things  con- 
trasted with  it !  Ethics  cover  simply  the  equities 
and  amenities  of  this  world,  it  is  sometimes  said.  But 
there  is  no  equity  of  this  world :  there  is  only  equity, 
as  good,  as  commanding  on  any  other  shining  planet 
as  on  this.  "  Beyond  and  above  the  moral  virtues 
the  soul  needs  a  religious  life,  fed  from  above,"  — 
so  reads  a  Unitarian  tract.  Whence  come  then  the 
moral  virtues  ?  From  below,  from  prudence,  from 
the  sense  of  decency,  from  long-sighted  selfishness  ? 
They  who  think  so  never  breathed  the  climate  of  mo- 
rality. Channing,  when  a  youth  of  nineteen,  wrote : 
"All  my  sentiments  and  affections  have  lately  changed. 

2 


18  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

I  once  considered  mere  moral  attainments  as  the  only 
object  I  had  to  pursue.  I  have  now  solemnly  given 
myself  up  to  God."  This  is  an  unmeaning  antithesis, 
a  part  of  the  falsehood  of  the  old  religious  culture, 
which  he  afterward  himself  detected ;  for  twenty  years 
later  he  wrote :  ^'  The  love  of  God  is  but  another  name 
for  the  love  of  essential  benevolence  and  justice/^  and 
the  object  of  religion  is,  not  to  "raise  us  to  some- 
thing higher  than  morality,  for  that  would  be  to  raise 
us  above  God  himself,  but  to  give  us  sublime  ideas 
of  morality.''  Ethics  is  a  pure  concern  of  man  with 
man,  it  is  often  said ;  it  is  religion  that  binds  us  to 
a  higher  order  of  things.  Yet  ethics  is  nothing  but 
the  response  which  man  and  man  make  to  the  higher 
order  of  things  ;  for  the  reason  of  justice  is,  not  that 
another  wants  it  and  I  choose  to  give  it,  but  that  he 
ought  to  have  it  and  I  ought  to  give  it.  The  duty  is 
absolute,  not  conditioned  on  our  will  or  thought,  but 
given  to  us  in  and  by  the  nature  of  things.  Ethics 
realized  in  its  meaning  is  religion ;  it  is  the  only  reli- 
gion for  the  rational  man.  In  my  humblest  human 
service,  I  may  be  conscious  of  owning  the  call  which  a 
higher  —  nay,  the  highest  —  makes  upon  me.  Aspira- 
tion, reverence,  awe,  all  those  sentiments  so  often 
contrasted  with  morality,  are  but  uncompleted  mo- 
rality ;  and  when  the  moral  act  is  done,  ecstasy  is  its 
sign,  —  ecstasy,  which  is  the  grace  heaven  sets  upon 
the  moment  in  which  the  soul  weds  itself  to  the 
perfect  good. 

In  speaking  of  an  ethical,  an  essentially  practical 
religion,  I  have  not  in  mind  simply  a  few  superficial 
improvements  on  the  old  religions.  I  mean  not  simply 
a  little  more  "  practical  work,"  a  little  more  attention 


ETHICAL  RELIGION.  19 

to  the  necessities  of  the  poor^  a  little  better  education 
of  the  young  among  them^  a  making  of  their  life  a  lit- 
tle cleaner,  neater,  healthier,  more  respectable.  An 
ethical  religion  would  mean  this,  but  because  it  meant 
vastly  more.  It  is  nothing  else  than  a  changed  thought 
of  the  nature  of  religion  which  I  have  in  mind ;  name- 
ly, that  it  can  be  no  longer  for  rational  men  to-day  to 
worship  or  pray,  but  to  have  the  sense  of  a  task,  the 
sense  of  somewhat  limitless  to  accomplish,  and  to  ac- 
complish it.  The  Christian  Church  sings  in  one  of 
its  hymns,  — 

"Oh,  where  are  kings  and  empires  now, 
Of  old  that  went  and  came  ? 
But  holy  Church  is  praying  yet, 
A  thousand  years  the  same." 

Might  it  not  go  on  praying  a  thousand  years  more, 
and  no  better  result  come  of  it  ?  If  we  must  pray,  let 
us  pray  to  men  ;  for  there  all  the  trouble  lies.  Could 
you,  0  Churches,  but  open  the  hearts  of  your  worship- 
pers, as  you  seek  to  move  the  heart  of  God,  the  need 
for  all  other  prayer  would  soon  be  gone.  Eeligion  is 
not  seeing  the  evil  and  wrong  in  the  world,  and  trust- 
ing that  somehow  in  the  counsels  of  God  it  is  all  for 
the  best,  but  in  confidently  attacking  the  evil  and  the 
wrong,  and  in  leading  on  the  good,  as  John  Stuart 
Mill  says,  to  its  distant  and  yet  not  uncertain  triumph. 
Tiie  truest  revelation,  the  truest  voice  of  the  nature  of 
things,  is  not  in  what  we  see,  but  in  our  thoughts  of 
what  ought  to  be.  Trust  thy  dreams,  0  E-eformer  ! 
thou  comest  never  so  nigh  to  the  heart  and  spirit  of 
things  as  in  them.  This  that  thou  seest,  this  that 
seems  so  strong,  so  secure,  so  impregnable,  will  after  a 


20  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

time  vanish  away  ;  and  what  thou  thinkest  of,  what 
thou  art  called  visionary  for  daring  to  think  of,  will 
then  be  the  real ! 

To  the  finest  flower  of  Kew  England  culture,  to 
Emerson,  was  given  the  insight  into  the  essential 
identity  between  morals  and  religion.^  I  scarcely 
know  what  true  thought  of  mine  the  reader  will  not 
find,  stripped  of  its  imperfections  of  statement,  in  him. 
It  was  he  who  long  ago  spoke  of  the  consolation,  the 
hope,  the  grandeur  that  come  alone  out  of  the  culture 
of  the  moral  nature.^  Theology  was  to  him  the  rhet- 
oric of  morals.^  ''  The  mind  of  this  age,"  he  says,  "  has 
fallen  away  from  theology  to  morals.  I  conceive  it  to 
be  an  advance."  Unbelief  to  him  was  losing  hold  of 
the  moral  intuitions.^  Religion  was  the  practices,  pri- 
vate and  social,  in  honor  of  the  moral  sentiment.^  The 
commanding  fact  which  he  never  lost  sight  of  was  the 
sufficiency  of  this  sentiment.^  He  will  not  allow  that 
ethics  do  not  satisfy  affection,"^  or  that  they  give  only 
a  rule,  and  not  the  spirit  by  which  the  rule  is  ani- 
mated.^ All  the  religion  we  have,  he  says,  is  the  eth- 
ics of  one  or  another  holy  person.^  And  whenever 
the  sublimities  of  character  are  incarnated  in  a  man, 
we  may  rely  that  awe  and  love  and  insatiable  curiosity 
will  follow  in  his  steps. ^*^  "No  man,"  he  says,  "can 
tell  what  religious  revolutions  await  us  in  the  next 

1  The  Sovereignty  of  Ethics  (in  Lectures  and  Biographical 
Sketches). 

2  Divinity  School  Address. 

8  Character  (in  Lectures  and  Biographical  Sketches). 

*  The  Preacher.  ^  Sovereignty  of  Ethics. 

6  Ibid.  7  Ibid. 

8  Character  (in  Lectures  and  Biographical  Sketches). 

9  Sovereignty  of  Ethics.  ^^  Character. 


ETHICAL  RELIGION.  21 

years ;  and  the  education  in  the  divinity  colleges  may 
well  hesitate  and  vary.  But  the  science  of  ethics  has 
no  mutations ;  and  whoever  feels  any  love  or  skill  for 
ethical  studies  may  safely  lay  out  all  his  strength  and 
genius  in  working  that  mine.  The  pulpit  may  shake, 
but  this  platform  will  not.  All  the  victories  of  re- 
ligion belong  to  the  moral  sentiments."  He  has  a 
faith  that  America  shall  introduce  a  pure  religion,^ 
since  a  true  nation  loves  its  vernacular  tongue,  and 
will  not  import  its  religion,  as  we  have  ours  from 
Judea.^ 

It  is  a  grand  task,  to  attempt  to  translate  the  old 
truths  of  the  moral  nature  into  the  language  of  to-day. 
Theology  is  not  more,  but  less  than  the  truth.  Life  in 
the  future  shall  not  be  less,  but  more  freighted  with 
significance  than  ever  before ;  for  no  longer  shall  men 
be  wondering  spectators  of  a  divine  task  accomplish- 
ing in  the  world,  but  themselves  the  accomplishers  of 
it,  themselves  the  hands  by  which  the  eternal  purpose 
realizes  itself. 

1  Sovereignty  of  Ethics.  2  Character. 


II. 

THE  IDEAL  ELEMENT  IN  MORALITY. 

THE  current  views  of  morality  are  low  and  con- 
ventional. Even  the  churches,  which  should 
inspire  us  with  an  ideal  view  of  life,  talk  of  "mere 
morality."  Morality  is  thought  to  be  without  mys- 
tery ;  ^  worship  is  contrasted  with  it.^  A  celebrated 
English  preacher  says,  "Sometimes,  losing  sight  of  di- 
vine and  eternal  things,  Christianity  becomes  a  moral 
discipline  without  the  inspiration  of  religious  awe  and 
love  and  hope  and  fear."  ^  Morality  itself,  then,  is 
not  one  of  those  divine  and  eternal  things ;  there  is 
nothing  about  it  to  touch  the  soul  with  love  or  awe, 
with  hope  or  fear !  Yes,  it  is  often  said  that  moral- 
ity cannot  live  save  as  it  is  grounded  in  religion ;  that 
it  is  but  a  branch  from  the  vigorous  root  of  religion."* 

1  Natural  Religion,  p.  132 ;  cf .  the  passage  on  p.  133 :  "  At  this 
point  it  is,  at  this  disappointing  identification  of  religion  with 
morality,  that  the  breach  takes  place.  Can,  then,  religion  mean 
no  more  than  that  we  should  pay  our  debts,  keep  our  engagements, 
and  not  he  too  hard  on  our  enemies  9"  (The  italics  are  ours.)  This 
is  all  then  that  morality  means  ! 

2  Ibid.,  p.  184. 

8  R.  W.  Dale,  Contemporary  Review,  April,  1883. 

4  So  Channing  said,  in  early  life  (Life,  A.  U.  A.  ed.,  p.  74) ;  but 
later  he  wrote,  "  To  love  God  is  to  love  morality  in  its  most  per- 
fect form,"  and  the  office  of  religion  is  not  to  raise  us  "  to  some- 
thing higher  than  morality,"  but  to  give  us  ''sublime  ideas  of 


THE  IDEAL  ELEMENT   IN  MORALITY.  23 

Now,  in  contrast  with  these  conventional  views  I 
wish  to  bring  out  the  ideal  meaning  of  morality.  I 
wish  to  show  that  it  brings  before  us  great  thoughts, 
and  thoughts  touching  the  deep  places  of  the  soul.  I 
wish  to  show  that  there  is  something  in  it  which  lays 
hold  of  eternity ;  that  it  may  well,  and  does  in  all  but 
the  coarsest  natures,  stir  awe  and  love  and  hope  and 
fear.  I  wish  to  show  that  religion,  the  only  true  re- 
ligion —  though  it  nowhere  exists  now  —  is  but  the 
blossoming  out  of  morality ;  that  morality  is  its  root, 
instead  of  being  a  branch  from  the  root  of  religion. 
And  I  am  particularly  anxious  to  show  this  to  the 
satisfaction  of  those  who  are  not  accustomed  to  what 
are  called  idealistic  modes  of  thought. 

Let  me  distinctly  say  at  the  outset  that  the  ideal 
view  of  morality  with  which  I  am  now  concerned  does 
not  rest  upon  idealism  in  philosophy.  There  is  no 
reason  why  the  philosophical  materialist  should  not 
join  me  in  what  I  shall  say  of  morality.  As  matter 
of  fact,  there  seems  to  be  as  much  moral  idealism 
among  those  who  call  themselves  materialists  as 
among  any  other  class  of  people.  Think  for  a  mo- 
ment of  the  revolutionists  in  Eussia, — most  of  them 
young  men  and  women,  to  whom,  it  is  said,  you  could 
not  offer  greater  affront  than  to  call  them  idealists.^ 
They  are  materialists ;  they  do  not  believe  in  a  God  or 
a  future  life ;   the  world  of  the  senses  is  alone  real  to 

moralitj^"  (Life,  pp.  230,  231).  The  conventional  view  is  well 
brought  out  in  "  Something  above  Morality ,''  by  Rev.  Richard 
Metcalf,  —  a  tract  published  by  the  American  Unitarian  Associa- 
tion, Boston. 

1  M.  Leroy-Beaulieu  in  Lalor's  Cyclopoedia  of  Political  Sci- 
ence, article  "Nihilism." 


24  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

them.  Yet  where  do  they  place  their  hope  ?  In 
what  they  see,  in  what  their  senses  can  lay  hold  of, 
in  the  actual  order  of  social  and  political  life  that 
forever  confronts  them  ?  No  ;  but  in  something  they 
do  not  see,  in  something  that  is  not  and  never  has 
been  in  Eussia,  —  an  era  of  freedom,  an  era  of  democ- 
racy, an  era  of  brotherhood.  So  long  as  this  era  is 
not,  it  is  but  a  possibility,  an  idea.  And  for  that  pos- 
sibility, for  that  idea,  they  leave  sometimes  high  rank 
and  station,  become  almost  ascetics  in  their  mode  of 
life,  and  are  ready  to  go  to  Siberia  or  the  scaffold. 
Nothing,  not  life  itself,  is  so  dear  to  them  as  the  idea, 
the  dream,  of  their  imaginations  and  their  hearts. 

Nor  is  moral  idealism  inconsistent  with  the  utilita- 
rian theory  of  the  origin  and  sanction  of  our  moral 
ideas.  Utilitarianism  says  that  our  notions  of  right 
and  wrong  do  not  come  from  some  magical  intuition  or 
revelation,  but  arise  in  the  natural  course  of  human 
experience  and  development ;  and  that  morality  has 
its  ultimate  sanction  in  its  tendency  to  promote  the 
general  good,  the  universal  happiness.  I  am  not  con- 
cerned with  this  or  any  other  theory  to-day,  but  with 
the  content  of  morality,  the  ideal  nature  of  which  is 
often  so  faintly  realized.  As  matter  of  fact,  utilita- 
rians are  as  often  idealists,  in  the  sense  in  which  I 
am  now  using  the  word,  as  the  advocates  of  any  other 
theory  of  morality  are.  Jeremy  Bentham  is  called 
the  father  of  modern  utilitarianism ;  yet  what  greater 
reformer  has  England  had  during  the  last  hundred 
years  in  legislation,  politics,  prison  discipline,  and 
education,  than  Bentham  ?  Of  him  and  James  Mill 
it  has  been  well  said,  that  "believing  that  theory  was 
all-powerful,  that  no  hard  and  fast  line  could  be  drawn 


THE  IDEAL  ELEMENT   IN  MORALITY.  25 

between  the  theoretically  sound  and  the  practically 
feasible,  and  that  every  simple  and  intelligible  system 
only  required  energy  and  determination  to  convert  it 
at  once  into  a  body  of  maxims  and  motives,  they  set 
to  work  in  all  directions  with  undaunted  applications 
of  their  brand  new  doctrines  to  the  crude  material  of 
fact."  ^  This  is  the  very  spirit  of  idealism,  as  I  am 
concerned  with  it  at  this  time.  Reform  is  essentially 
idealistic.  Every  reformer  takes  his  stand  not  with 
what  is,  but  with  what  he  conceives  ought  to  be  ;  not 
with  the  customs  and  traditions  and  institutions  that 
have  come  down  from  the  past,  but  with  the  ideas 
that  he  believes  must  rule  in  the  future.  Successful 
reform  means,  indeed,  conquering  a  fact  by  an  idea. 

Nor,  in  speaking  of  the  ideal  meaning  of  morality, 
in  trying  to  show  that  it  calls  us  away  from  what  we 
see  and  know  to  what  we  can  only  think  of,  let  me  be 
understood  as  endeavoring  to  transcend  the  realm  of 
the  human  mind.  Shakspeare  is  involved  in  the  same 
apparent  contradiction  when  he  speaks  of 

"...  thoughts  beyond  the  reaches  of  our  souls."  2 

But  moral  ideas,  however  much  they  may  contrast 
with  reality,  are  thoughts  of  the  human  mind.  To 
win  them  and  to  live  in  them  is  not  to  lose  ourselves, 
but  to  enlarge  ourselves.  We  are  not  merely  so  much 
space  as  is  covered  by  our  bodies,  but  minds  that  can 
take  in  the  past  and  the  future,  that  can  wander  over 
the  earth  and  climb  to  the  stars,  that  can  muse  on 
what  is  and  think  of  the  better  that  might  be.     There 

^  G.  S.  Bower*s   Hartley  and  James   Mill,  p.  227.     See  also 
Maine's  Ancient  Law,  p.  76. 
2  Hamlet,  act  i.  scene  4. 


26  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

is  no  outside  to  the  mind ;  the  grandest,  divinest,  most 
perfe.ct  things  are  simply  thoughts  of  what  may  be. 

With  these  explanations  let  me  proceed  to  my  task. 
What  are  more  natural  and  commonplace  experiences 
with  us  than  our  wishes  and  wants  *?  But  if  we  reflect 
a  moment,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  they  have  an  ideal  sig- 
nificance. We  do  not  wish  for  what  we  have  or  for 
what  we  are  already ;  we  wish  for  what  we  have  not 
or  are  not,  for  what  we  are  without,  for  what,  in  the 
literal  sense,  we  want.  What  is  then  the  wished-for 
object  but  a  possibility  or  an  idea  ?  If  we  stop  to 
think,  we  shall  see  that  all  our  wishes  and  wants 
go  out  to  ideas.  It  may  seem  strange  that  we  should 
often  set  more  store  by  what  is  not  than  by  what  is. 
Why  should  we,  it  may  be  asked.  We  cannot  answer 
save  by  saying  that  it  seems  a  part  of  our  nature  to 
do  so.  As  it  belongs  to  us  to  hear  and  see,  so  it  does 
to  think  of  what  we  do  not  hear  or  see,  to  be  dis- 
contented ;  to  reach  out,  to  form  ideals.  Perhaps  it 
is  a  provision  for  progress,  for  life,  for  movement ;  for 
if  one  is  conscious  of  no  wants,  if  he  has  no  wishes, 
nor  ideals,  what  is  he  practically  but  dead,  without  an 
incentive  to  movement,  without  the  possibility  even  of 
becoming  more  than  he  is  ? 

Our  ideas  are,  however,  of  two  kinds.  It  is  a  long 
way  from  a  child's  craving  for  a  doll  or  a  sled  to  a 
young  man's  or  a  young  woman's  desire  to  lead  a  pure, 
blameless  life,  or  the  mature  person's  craving  to  see 
justice  reflected  in  the  general  arrangements  of  society. 
There  is  a  difference,  indeed,  all  through  life  between 
our  longings  after  what  we  may  call  happiness,  com- 
fort, prosperity,  enjoyment,  and  those  after  goodness, 
unselfishness,  and  purity.    We  cannot  say  we  ought  to 


THE  IDEAL  ELEMENT  IN  MORALITY.  27 

be  happy,  but  only  that  we  should  like  to  be ;  but  we 
do  say  that  we  ought  to  be  good,  and  this  even  if  we  do 
not  wish  to  be,  if  our  matter-of-fact  desires  chance  at 
any  moment  to  be  clean  of  a  contrary  sort.  In  a  word, 
the  note  of  authority  seems  to  go  along  with  a  certain 
class  of  ideas.  We  live  amid  ideas  to  the  extent  that 
we  really  live  at  all ;  but  some  of  the  ideas  we  simply 
crave,  and  others  seem  to  bind  us,  —  some  we  can  make 
a  goal  for  our  lives  if  we  choose,  and  others  seem 
fixed  for  us,  so  that  we  cannot  turn  from  them  with- 
out inwardly  experiencing  some  kind  of  disgrace. 
There  is  no  necessary  dishonor  in  not  having  a  home 
and  a  family,  or  in  not  entering  on  a  business  career. 
But  with  a  home,  to  be  unfaithful  to  it,  or  in  business 
to  forget  the  laws  of  truth  and  honor  there,  is  morally 
blameworthy.  To  read  this  or  that  book  on  a  leisure 
afternoon,  or  to  leave  our  books  altogether  and  take  a 
stroll,  or,  once  out,  to  turn  our  steps  along  this  street 
or  that,  —  there  is  nothing  to  bind  us  in  any  of  these 
alternatives  ;  it  may  be  that  no  one  is  better  than  an- 
other ;  the  only  "  better  "  may  be  to  suit  our  mood,  to 
do  according  to  our  own  sweet  will.  But  often  we 
are  in  the  face  of  alternatives,  one  of  which  has  a  dis- 
tinct urgency  about  it ;  we  know  it  to  be  better,  even 
though  we  do  not  choose  it ;  it  seems  to  have  a  claim 
upon  us  whether  we  will  or  no,  and  our  real  task  is  not 
to  wait  and  see  if  our  natural  choice  will  not  change, 
but  to  change  it,  to  choose  ever  the  true  and  the  good. 
Now,  those  ideas  (from  out  the  countless  number  that 
throng  our  minds)  that  have  this  urgency  about  them, 
that  are  intrinsically  better  and  seem  to  constrain  us, 
we  call  moral  ideas ;  the  sum  of  them  make  what  we 
call  morality. 


28  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

Morality  is  thus  in  essence  ideal.  It  is  not  what 
men  do,  but  what  they  ought  to  do ;  not  what  they 
wish,  but  what  they  ought  to  wish.  It  is  as  with 
truth.  Truth  is  not  what  one  happens  to  think ;  it  is 
not  this  or  that  belief  which  one  may  cherish,  but  that 
which  corresponds  to  the  fact  of  things.  And  so  with 
art :  a  picture  or  a  statue  is  not  a  work  of  art  because 
the  brush  or  the  chisel  has  been  used  in  producing 
it,  but  because  it  reflects  in  some  degree  the  ideal  of 
the  beautiful.  Let  me  use  some  very  simple  illustra- 
tions of  the  ideal  nature  of  morality.  Happily,  kind- 
liness belongs  by  a  gift  of  nature  to  most  men  ;  it 
finds  a  special  field  of  operation  in  the  home,  where 
others  are  brought  so  near  to  us,  —  how  much  sweeter 
and  more  beautiful  is  the  life  of  the  family  where 
kindliness  is  the  law!  But  suppose  that  in  some 
family  this  ceases  to  be  the  law ;  that  some  member 
of  it  forgets  to  show  this  spirit,  easily  loses  his  tem- 
per, and  grows  irritable,  surly,  and  cross;  and  that 
this  affects  the  life  of  the  family,  and  the  quiet, 
genial  kindliness  that  was  wont  to  be  there  goes  and 
leaves  faint  traces  of  itself,  —  do  we  hesitate  to  say 
that  kindliness  is  still  the  true  ideal  for  that  family ; 
that  though  it  is  no  longer  there,  it  ought  to  be  there, 
and  all  should  be  pervaded  with  its  spirit  ?  ^  Because 
the  facts  have  come  to  be  contrary  to  the  ideal,  have 
we  now  doubt  about  the  ideal  itself?  Surely  not. 
What  difference  does  it  make  that  mankind  has  come 
from  a  time  of  unspeakable  barbarism  in  the  past, 
when  there  was  no  kindliness  and  no  ideal  of  it;  that 
men  have  learned  the  ideal,  that  many  have  still  to 
learn  it ;  that  the  practice  of  the  best  of  us  hardly  cor- 
responds to  our  ideal,  that  the  ideal  itself  may  grow 


THE   IDEzVL  ELEMENT   IN  MORALITY.  29 

completer  and  finer  ?  The  only  question  is,  is  it  not 
a  true  ideal ,  could  there  have  been  progress  in  the 
past  in  any  other  direction  than  toward  it ;  is  it  pos- 
sible that  there  can  be  an}^  progress  in  the  future  that 
is  away  from  it  ?  No ;  the  family  life  of  man  may  go 
actually  in  one  way  or  another,  but  it  can  only  go  one 
way  and  go  right.  There  is  an  ideal  for  it  th3;t  we 
cannot  conceive  as  changing. 

Or  take  an  illustration  from  the  political  life  of 
men.  The  prime  concern  of  the  State  should  be  for 
justice.  I  do  not  say  this  has  been  the  case,  or  that 
it  is  perfectly  so  now.  The  State  has  often  stood  sim- 
ply for  power ;  the  head  of  the  State  has  often  made 
others  his  slaves,  —  men  have  held  property,  even  life, 
at  his  mercy.  But  does  any  one  hesitate  to  say  that 
the  State  should  stand  for  justice,  that  this  makes  an 
ideal  for  it ;  that  there  can  be  progress  only  in  one  di- 
rection ;  that  if  the  State  conies  to  be  in  the  possession, 
of  men  or  classes  of  men,  who  rule  for  their  own  and 
not  for  the  general  good,  this  would  be  retrogression  ? 
Suppose  that  any  government  now  makes  a  distinction 
between  those  who  are  equally  men,  but  are  of  dif- 
ferent color ;  or  that,  in  effect,  it  has  one  law  for  the 
rich  and  another,  or  none,  for  the  poor,  —  should  we  not 
hear  something  within  us  calling  and  demanding  that 
this  be  changed  ?  Is  there  not  something  command- 
ing, something  imperative  in  the  thought  of  universal 
justice  ?  Justice,  —  it  is  a  commonplace  word  ;  but 
is  it  even  in  our  democratic  republic  a  commonplace 
thing  ?  What  is  it,  then  ?  It  is  an  idea,  —  and  one 
which  though  it  were  never  realized,  would  not  cease 
to  give  the  ideal,  and  the  only  ideal,  for  human  gov- 
ernment.    Not  all  the  tyrants  of  the  past,  and  no  will 


30  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

or  combined  will  of  the  mightiest  to-day,  can  change 
it.  The  supreme  political  problem  is  to  find  it  out 
completely,  and  to  establish  it  perfectly ;  and  if 
human  governments  do  not  establish  it,  not  the 
idea,  but  they,  will  be  humbled  and  cast  down.  He 
who  stands  by  justice  —  let  him  be  aware  of  it — • 
and  who  stands  the  firmer  and  speaks  the  louder 
when  justice  seems  to  fail,  stands  by  an  idea.  Let 
him  keep  his  faith  though  it  does  fail,  for  in  truth 
justice  might  never  be  on  this  earth,  and  yet  not 
lose  one  particle  of  its  ideal  worth  and  its  ideal 
authority. 

Or  take  an  illustration  from  business  life.  What 
honorable  man  does  not  place  truth  before  success  in 
business  ?  Who  does  not  feel  that  he  ought  to  be 
truthful,  whether  it  will  be  advantageous  to  him  or 
not  ?  Who  does  not  feel  that  truth  gives  the  ideal 
for  business  life,  and  own  it  in  his  thoughts,  if  not  in 
his  practice,  —  and  want  to  know  how  business  can  be 
arranged  so  that  there  will  not  be  even  the  semblance 
of  a  necessity  for  anything  else  ?  What  is  many  a 
man's  secret  disturbance  about  the  matter  but  a  kind 
of  confession  that  the  idea  ought  to  rule,  that  some- 
thing he  catches  a  glimpse  of  within  is  in  its  nature 
commanding  and  authoritative,  and  that  with  it  he 
must  somehow  make  peace  ?  What  matters  it  that 
men  once  had  little  or  no  notion  of  truthfulness,  that 
they  have  learned  it,  that  many  have  still  to  learn  it, 
that  it  is  still  an  ideal,  and  in  advance  of  the  general 
practice  of  men  ?  I  only  ask.  Is  our  confidence  in  it 
any  less  on  these  accounts ;  is  not  progress  only 
towards  it ;  is  not  all  departure  from  it  retrogression  ; 
though  men   should  cease   to   own   it,   even   in  the 


THE   IDEAL  ELEMENT   IN  MORALITY.  31 

scant  measure  they  do  now,  would  they  not  be  cul- 
pably, unmistakably  in  the  wrong  ? 

And  so  with  all  the  institutions  of  society  and  all 
the  relations  of  human  life,  —  there  is  an  ideal  and  a 
law  for  them  ;  and  for  each  and  every  separate  one  an 
ideal  and  a  law  fitted  to  its  particular  nature  and  con- 
stitution. For  the  family,  for  the  State,  for  business, 
in  all  their  departments,  there  is  a  true  and  perfect 
way  of  conducting  them  ;  for  every  individual  life 
there  is  an  ideal  which  it  is  to  find  and  follow.  For 
even  if  we  have  not  grasped  the  ideal,  we  believe  that 
it  is  there.  We  know  that  we  do  not  make  and  can- 
not change  the  conditions  of  bodily  health,  that  we 
have  to  learn  them  ;  that  there  is  indeed  an  ideal 
method  of  living  which  would  insure  to  every  one  who 
would  follow  it  perfect  physical  health  and  strength. 
We  believe  that  the  conditions  of  social  welfare  and 
prosperity,  the  sources  of  peace  and  satisfaction  for 
each  individual  soul,  are  equally  fixed.  There  is  some 
form  of  society  which  would  secure  universal  well- 
being  ;  there  is  some  ideal  type  of  thinking,  feeling, 
and  acting  that  would,  when  realized,  make  a  perfect 
human  being.  We  know  the  law  that  makes  this 
marvel  of  order,  this  regularity,  this  punctuality,  this 
movement  without  jar  which  we  see  in  the  outward 
world.  How  simple  and  yet  how  far-reaching  is  the 
law  of  gravitation  !  But  the  law  that  would  turn  this 
chaos  of  human  life  into  a  cosmos,  we  do  not  know. 
It  differs  from  the  law  of  gravitation  very  plainly,  in 
that  it  does  not  act  necessarily :  if  it  did,  we  should 
have  already  an  order  here  comparable  to  that  we  see 
in  the  material  world.  But  we  have  to  discover  it ; 
and  when  we  shall  have  discovered  it,  we  shall  have 


32  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

to  give  it  the  free  consent  of  our  wills.  We  have 
.  indeed  already  gained  some  notion  of  it.  We  know 
to  a  certain  extent  what  makes  for  order  and  peace 
among  men.  What  we  call  the  moral  ideal  is  so  much 
of  it  as  we  know.  But  how  much  more  is  there  yet 
to  know  !  Even  the  idea  of  justice,  which  is  the  best 
part  of  our  moral  ideal,  —  who  understands  it,  who 
fathoms  it,  who  sees  all  that  it  means  and  must  mean 
to  the  future  ? 

Ethics  calls  us  away  to  these  visions  of  the  higher 
and  the  better.  It  is  a  science  of  life,  not  as  it  is,  but 
as  it  ought  to  be,  —  as  it  would  be  if  it  were  transfigured 
with  its  idea.  It  means  looking  at  life  from  the  high- 
est standpoint ;  it  means  unhesitatingly  taking  our 
stand  there,  and  fearing  not  to  criticise  the  actual  life 
of  men  according  to  the  ideal  standard.  It  may  be  no 
welcome  task  to  pass  judgment  on  ourselves,  yet  if 
we  are  real  in  the  matter  of  moral  culture,  I  do  not 
see  how  we  can  avoid  doing  so.  If  we  have  given  way 
to  unworthy  passion,  if  we  have  done  an  ungenerous 
thing,  if  for  selfish  reasons  we  have  broken  a  promise, 
—  if  in  any  way  we  have  followed  the  lower  rather 
than  the  higher  reason,  let  us  not  treat  the  matter 
as  of  no  consequence,  but  remember  it  and  judge  our- 
selves for  it;  yes,  better  in  some  w^ay  to  try  to  atone  for 
it  than  to  pass  it  by  with  indifference.  Still  less  wel- 
come is  it  to  pass  judgment  upon  others.  How  easy  to 
excuse  a  friend  where  we  would  not  excuse  ourselves ! 
How  hard  to  have  any  one  whom  we  love  sink  in  our 
estimation  !  The  question  is,  Which  comes  first,  loy- 
alty to  a  person  or  to  truth  ?  I  am  sure  that  while  there 
is  often  not  enough  of  charity  in  the  world,  there  is 
also  much  false  charity ;   and  that  while  nothing  is 


THE   IDEAL  ELEMENT   IN  MORALITY.  33 

more  uncalled  for  than  censoriousness,  and  the  pre- 
suming to  be  keeper  of  another's  conscience;  and  that 
at  no  time  are  we  so  called  to  purify  ourselves  of  all 
mere  personal  feeling  as  when  we  judge  of  another,  — 
yet  when  truth  compels  us,  we  should  judge,  remem- 
bering that  not  out  of  any  personal  regard  are  we  to 
forget  the  requirements  of  the  ideal  standard. 

Moreover,  as  we  read  history  we  are  to  take  our 
moral  judgment  with  us.  How  great  the  temptation 
will  often  be  to  abandon  our  moral  convictions,  so  fre- 
quently do  the  facts  of  history  seem  to  do  violence 
to  them ! 

**  Truth  forever  on  the  scaffold,  wrong  forever  on  the  throne,"  — 

how  does  the  sense  of  this  make  us  almost  doubt 
at  times  whether  there  is  any  right  or  any  wrong ; 
whether  our  ideas  of  right,  instead  of  unalterable  laws 
of  human  action,  are  not  entirely  relative  and  conven- 
tional things,  or  even  illusory  !  These  are  the  tempta- 
tions of  the  moral  idealist.  Eefreshing  are  the  words 
of  those  who  do  not  fail  in  their  moral  convictions, 
however  poorly  these  may  be  confirmed  by  the  actual 
course  of  history.  Seneca,  speaking  of  the  Roman 
Consul  Sulla,  called  his  fortune  "the  crime  of  the 
gods."  ^  I  confess  to  an  unbounded  admiration  for  the 
saying.  Though  it  savors  of  impiety,  it  hides  what  is 
to  my  mind  the  deepest  and  the  only  piety.  For  what 
was  the  history,  and  particularly  the  end  of  that  man, 
—  starting  as  he  did  w4th  a  fortune  given  him  by  a 
courtesan,  making  his  way  by  the  help  of  it  over  thou- 
sands of  the  wronged  and  slain  to  the  arbitrary  dicta- 
torship of  his  city  ;  retiring  from  office  in  old  age,  with 

1  Consolatio  ad  Mafciam,  xii.  6. 
3 


3J:  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

ambition  sated,  to  his  villa  to  practise  again  the  vo- 
luptuous habits  of  his  youth ;  and  then  finally  dying 
peacefully,  his  funeral  attended  by  hundreds  whom 
he  had  captivated  by  his  recklessness,  and  whose 
minds  he  had  debauched,  —  what  is  all  this  but  a 
satire  on  every  sentiment  of  justice?  "History  alone 
could  have  dared  to  tell  us  of  a  peaceful  end  to  such  a 
life  as  his ;  and  history,  again  and  again,  repeats  the 
defiance  to  our  moral  sense."  ^  Was  it  not  natural  for 
Seneca,  with  the  popular  view  of  the  gods  as  guiding 
and  ruling  in  the  affairs  of  men,  to  say  that  this  good 
fortune  of  Sulla  was  the  crime  of  the  gods  ?  What 
grand  impiety,  —  what  a  measuring  not  only  of  men 
but  of  gods  by  the  standard  of  moral  ideas !  For  this 
is  ever  the  test  of  a  true  man,  —  will  he  yield  up  his 
ideal  conviction  to  any  amount  of  contrary  facts ;  will 
he  take  his  stand  and  keep  it  contra  mundum,  and 
though  the  ruling  powers  of  the  world,  visible  and 
invisible,  were  opposed  to  him  ?  To  lose  the  sense  of 
an  ideal  right,  to  yield  it  up  before  a  show  of  might,  — 
that  is  the  only  infidelity,  the  only  atheism  we  need 
have  any  fear  of.  Then,  indeed,  a  fairer  world  than 
that  we  see  about  us  —  the  world  of  moral  truth  and 
moral  beauty  —  would  be  shattered  and  broken,  and 
in  the  ruins  it  were  hardly  worth  while  to  live.  In 
this  feeling,  though  I  would  stand  alone,  I  do  not  stand 
alone,  and  have  the  company  of  men  called  utilitari- 
ans and  materialists  as  well  as  many  others. 

John  Stuart  Mill  eloquently  protested  that  he  would 
rather  go  to  hell  than  do  violence  to  his  moral  nature 
by  calling  a  Being  good  who  bore  no  traces  of  the 

1  Contemporary  Review,  February,  1881,  article  on  **The  Moral 
Influence  of  George  Eliot.'* 


THE  IDEAL  ELEMENT   IN  MORALITY.  35 

character  designated  by  that  word.^  A  passage  from 
Huxley  reveals  the  same  noble  holding  of  moral  dis- 
tinctions :  2  "  For  suppose  theology  established  the 
existence  of  an  evil  deity,  —  and  some  theologians, 
even  Christian  ones,  have  come  very  near  this,  —  is 
the  religious  affection  to  be  transferred  from  the 
ethical  ideal  to  any  such  omnipotent  demon  ?  I  trow- 
not.  Better  a  thousand  times  that  the  human  race 
should  perish  under  his  thunderbolts  than  it  should 
say,  ^  Evil,  be  thou  my  good.'  '^ 

But  with  all  the  most  discouraging  facts  in  the 
world,  there  is  no  evidence  that  the  ultimate  powers 
of  the  world  are  evil.  Only  those  who  deny  freedom 
and  responsibility  to  man,  and  affix  all  blame  for  what- 
ever is  wrong  upon  the  ultimate  nature  of  things,  can 
call  that  ultimate  nature  evil.  Let  responsibility  for 
wrong  be  fixed  where  it  belongs,  —  on  the  human  doers 
of  it,  —  and  the  sky  is  cleared  of  the  hideous  spectre  of 
an  evil  god,  and  the  ideals  of  justice  and  of  goodness 
come  naturally  to  be  regarded  as  the  voice  of  the  ulti- 
mate nature  of  things,  and  obedience  to  them  and 
working  for  them  against  whatever  odds,  against  what- 
ever show  of  might  on  the  side  of  wrong  and  evil,  as 
the  truest,  the  deepest,  nay  the  only  piety.  The  only 
mistake  would  be  in  thinking  that  those  ideals  will 
be  accomplished  by  some  power  outside  ourselves,  in 
thinking  of  a  providential  justice  and  goodness.  In 
truth,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  there  is  no  such  providen- 
tial justice  and  goodness,  and  the  Christian  belief  is 
as  mythical  as  the  old  Eoman  belief.  There  were  no 
such  gods  as  Seneca  pictured,  and  there  is  no  such 

1  Examination  of  Sir  W.  Hamilton's  Philosophy,  chap.  vii. 

2  Critiques  and  Addresses,  p.  49, 


36  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

being  as  the  Christian  believes  in.  Justice  and  good- 
ness have  power  not  outside  of  us,  but  in  our  minds  ; 
they  are  to  rule  the  world,  if  ever  they  do,  as  we  sur- 
render ourselves  to  them  and  make  them  rule.  Yet 
they  are  authoritative,  they  are  binding,  they  are  set 
fast  for  us  in  the  nature  of  things,  and  by  the  nature 
of  things ;  and  when  all  notions  of  a  providential  deity 
are  gone,  they  but  shine  clearer  in  their  own  light, 
and  evidence  something  in  which  they  are  rooted  that 
can  never  go,  that  is  eternal  and  unchangeable.  Some 
time  humanity  will  be  so  aroused  to  its  own  true  place 
and  calling  in  the  world  that  such  a  life  and  such 
a  death  as  Sulla's  can  never  again  happen ;  society 
will  be  so  ordered,  individuals  will  be  so  treated  and 
judged,  that  a  man  like  Sulla  will  have  no  chance  of 
rising,  or  if  he  has,  will  die  in  universal  contempt. 
The  fortune  of  Sulla  was  the  crime  of  the  Eoman 
people.  Society  will  always  have  such  monsters  of 
iniquity  till  it  purges  itself ;  and  the  task  set  for  it, 
the  task  from  which  it  cannot  escape  (unless  it  too  is 
to  rot  and  die),  is  to  purge  itself,  —  and  religion,  the 
only  religion  the  future  can  have,  must  be  a  voluntary 
dedication  on  the  part  of  society  to  that  task. 

Alphonso  of  Castile's  words  have  a  charm  like  those 
of  Seneca.  "  If  he  had  been  present  at  the  creation, 
he  could  have  given  some  useful  hints  for  the  better 
ordering  of  the  universe."  Ah,  if  Alphonso  had  only 
realized  that  a  part  of  creation  was  there  in  his 
own  power  to  refashion,  if  he  would  !  The  respon- 
sibility for  the  unequal  order  of  society  that  prevailed 
in  the  Middle  Ages,  when  he  lived,  was  not  charge- 
able on  the  creator,  but  on  men  themselves,  —  and 
particularly  on  those  lords  and  princes  to  the  number 


THE  IDEAL  ELEMENT  IN  MORALITY.  37 

of  which  Alphonso  belonged.  He  might  easily  have 
given  a  better  ordering  to  his  little  part  of  the  uni- 
verse, and  set  an  example  to  the  other  princes  about 
him,  whereby  oppressions  and  robberies  and  all  man- 
ner of  despoilings  of  the  weak  by  the  strong  might 
have  in  some  measure  ceased. 

It  is  strange,  when  we  bear  in  mind  the  ideal  nature 
of  morality,  to  hear  that  morality  must  be  based  upon 
facts.  Morality  is  not  really  a  question  of  facts,  but 
of  the  right  of  facts  to  be,  of  their  correspondence 
with  a  standard  of  the  mind.  For  all  scientific  hy- 
potheses we  must  look  for  a  foundation  in  the  world 
as  it  is  ;  for  they  are  nothing  but  attempted  explana- 
tions of  the  actual  order  of  things,  and  we  believe  in 
them  more  or  less,  as  there  is  more  or  less  evidence 
from  facts  in  their  favor.  But  morality  is  in  its  na- 
ture an  ideal  and  a  rule,  and  we  can  account  for  many 
of  the  phenomena  of  history  and  of  human  life  to-day 
only  on  the  supposition  that  morality  was  not  and  is 
not  heeded,  and  perhaps  not  even  thought  of.  Base 
morality  on  facts  ?  Which  facts  ?  There  are  innu- 
merable facts,  an  induction  from  which  would  only 
give  us  immorality.  The  good  facts,  then  ?  But 
plainly,  this  is  moving  in  a  circle.  In  truth,  there 
is  nothing  on  which  to  base  morality.  We  do  not  so 
much  find  it,  as  demand  it  in  the  world.^  All  the 
separate  moral  rules  may  be  resolved  into  the  supreme 
one,  —  to  seek  the  general  welfare,  the  universal  good. 
But  who  can  give  a  reason  for  the  supreme  rule  ?    In- 

1  Amiel,  "the  sweet-souled  Genevan  mystic,"  says:  "It  is  not 
history  which  teaches  rigliteousness  to  the  conscience ;  it  is  con- 
science which  teaches  righteousness  to  history.  The  actual  is 
corrupting;  it  is  we  who  rectify  it  by  loyalty  to  the  ideal." 


38  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

deed,  no  serious  man  wants  a  reason.  The  supreme 
command  appeals  immediately  to  the  human  mind; 
it  is  an  assertion  of  the  human  mind.  No  honest  man 
wants  a  reason  why  he  should  do  right  any  more  than 
why  he  should  allow  the  sun  to  be  in  the  heavens. 
The  sun  is  there,  and  he  sees  it ;  and  joy  and  light 
and  warmth  come,  he  knows,  from  living  under  its 
influence.  So  with  the  idea  of  the  universal  good :  to 
know  it  is  to  love  it ;  to  become  simply  aware  of  it  is 
to  feel  it  to  be  the  true  sovereign  law  of  our  lives. 
And  not  to  own  it,  —  not  to  own  the  several  forms  in 
which  it  comes  to  us,  —  what  is  this  but  to  make  our- 
selves wanderers  and  waifs  on  the  earth  ;  yes,  to  con- 
tradict the  universal  law  of  existence,  since  even  the 
atoms  own  their  attractions,  even  the  senseless  rain 
owns  its  bond  to  the  sea  whence  it  came  ?  Man  be- 
longs to  the  idea  of  the  universal  good  ;  he  is  only 
himself  as  he  acts  from  it  and  for  it. 

Does  ethics,  then,  give  us  no  great  thoughts  ?  That 
man  can  respond  to  a  universal  good ;  that  he  can  con- 
nect himself  with  the  fortune  of  those  whom  be  has 
never  seen  nor  shall  see ;  that  he  can  bless  in  spirit 
unborn  generations,  and  reach  out  to  the  world  to 
heal  it  and  to  lift  it  up,  —  is  there  nothing  mystical, 
nothing  wondrous,  nothing  strange  in  all  that  ?  In 
truth,  there  is  something  limitless  in  human  nature, 
as  there  is  in  the  good  of  which  it  conceives.  Our 
souls  crave  a  perfect  good,  we  feel  the  pull  thither- 
ward, we  own  the  law  that  points  in  that  direction. 
Does  this  stir  no  awe,  nor  love,  nor  hope,  nor  fear  ?  I 
know  of  but  one  thing  in  this  world  that  may  well  ex- 
cite awe  :  it  is  not  any  spectacle  of  Kature,  not  any 
show  of  power  or  of  beauty,  but  the  thought  of  the 


THE  IDEAL  ELEMENT  IN  MORALITY.  39 

supreme  law  under  which  we  live,  of  the  ideals  that 
are  unalterably  set  for  us,  of  the  perfect  goal  to  which 
our  inmost  being  tends.  We  are,  indeed,  strangers 
here  amid  these  scenes,  where  so  much  meets  the  eye 
that  afflicts  the  soul  ;  we  cannot  avoid  picturing  our 
home  and  proper  country  as  far  away,  and  ourselves 
as  travelling  thitherward.  What  longings  seize  us  as 
we  think  of  this  !  —  what  love,  what  hope,  what  fear, 
lest  by  any  chance  or  carelessness  we  should  lose  our 
way ! 

What  does  religion  add,  then,  to  ethics  ;  what  greater 
thought  does  it  give  us  than  this  of  a  law  that  forever 
encompasses  us  ?  Nothing  that  I  can  see  ;  and  what 
it  attempts  to  add  is,  generally  at  least,  Aherglauhe, 
superstition.  Eeligion  conceives  the  good  in  the  form 
of  a  person,  and  asserts  that  he  is  ruling  in  the  world. 
But  this  is  an  illusion,  and  really  a  harmful  one. 
A  true,  sound,  and  wholly  rational  religion,  —  so,  be- 
cause containing  no  premises  that  could  reasonably  be 
doubted,  —  would  be  simply  a  perfected  ethics.  Mo- 
rality as  custom,  as  public  opinion,  as  law,  has,  I  well 
know,  to  be  continually  revised  and  enlarged ;  and  as 
morality  may  have  been  identified  with  these  things, 
the  larger  ideas  may  refuse  the  name  morality  as  tame 
and  commonplace.  But  morality  is  in  truth  a  prin- 
ciple, and  the  enlargement  mentioned  has  always  been 
on  the  basis  of  the  principles  of  morality,  and  has  al- 
ways issued  in  a  larger,  fuller  moral  ideal.  Eeligion 
seems  also  to  add  to  morality  the  thought  of  heaven  ; 
but  this,  when  purely  conceived,  is  not  something  apart 
from  goodness,  but  the  triumph  of  goodness.  We  too, 
as  believers  in  the  good,  look  for  its  triumph.  Not  yet 
is  the  end  and  issue  of  things,  but  far  away ;  though 


40  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

we  know  not  whether  these  earthly  selves  shall  ever 
see  the  triumph,  though  we  can  only  think  of  it  and 
know  that  there  will  be  an  outcome  of  our  struggles 
and  pains  there. 

Eeligion  in  the  future  must  not  only  disengage  it- 
self from  the  mythical  elements  of  the  old  religions, 
it  must  present  a  higher  type  of  religion.  The  reli- 
gions of  the  past  have  generally  had  a  taint  of  selfish- 
ness about  them.  They  have  held  out  the  hope  of 
recompense ;  they  have  not  commanded  and  sum- 
moned men  in  the  name  of  the  good  and  for  its  sake 
alone  ;  they  have  not  taken  men  out  of  themselves. 
I  see  a  new  religion  arising,  basing  itself  on  trust 
in  man  ;  calling  to  the  hitherto  unstirred  depths  of 
loyalty  in  him,  —  believing  that  he  can  love  the  good 
without  thought  of  a  reward,  that  he  can  rise  superior 
to  the  motives  that  ordinarily  determine  men,  that 
the  heaven  of  principle  can  rule  in  the  human  breast. 
Man's  ignorance  as  to  what  will  become  of  him  after 
he  dies  never  disturbed  a  noble,  a  truly  religious  soul. 
It  may  drive  the  timid,  the  fearful,  —  those  so  ankious 
to  know  whether  their  poor  self-centred  selves  are 
going  to  live  again,  —  to  despair,  or  to  the  comfort,  as 
they  call  it,  of  the  gospel  and  the  church.  Poor  souls  ! 
let  them  have  the  comfort  while  they  may.  But  they 
might  live  on  forever  and  never  know  what  true 
blessedness  is.  This  they  will  not  know  till  they 
cease  to  think  of  themselves,  —  whether  they  are  to 
live  or  die,  —  and  give  themselves  over  to  the  good, 
and  live  now  in  the  supreme  eternal  moments.  For 
religion,  if  it  means  anything,  binds  us  to  a  law  above 
us  and  raps  us  out  of  ourselves.  The  religious  men 
and  women  of  the  future  will  give  themselves  to  all 


THE  IDEAL  ELEMENT  IN  MORALITY.  41 

their  dreams  of  the  perfect  without  questioning  or 
concern ;  they  will  know  that  they  are  in  higher, 
stronger  keeping  than  any  they  can  themselves  de- 
vise, —  that  the  blessed  Powers,  which  no  man  can 
name,  contain  them  and  enfold  them  ;  that  if  there  is 
anything  of  worth  in  them,  that  will  live,  and  all  else 
they  will  themselves  willingly  let  die.  An  ideal  per- 
fection is  the  only  ultimate  reason  for  existence.  If 
we  do  not  turn  our  faces  thitherward,  our  lives,  how- 
ever full  of  shows  and  business  and  plans  and  works 
they  may  be,  are  without  rational  significance  ;  and  if 
we  do,  there  are  at  bottom  no  more  puzzles  or  cares 
or  anxieties  for  us,  —  in  our  heart  of  hearts  there  is 
a  peace  and  joy  that  no  reverses  or  disappointments 
can  disturb  or  mar. 


III. 

WHAT  IS  A  MORAL  ACTION? 

WHAT  is  it  that  gives  a  moral  quality  to  an 
action,  that  lends  it  moral  worth  ?  I  do 
not  mean  to  contrast  moral  with  immoral  actions, — 
but  what  of  the  multitude  of  our  e very-day  actions 
against  which  nothing  can  be  said  from  a  conventional 
stand-point,  deserve  to  be  singled  out  and  have  this 
mark  of  honor  attached  to  them ;  namely,  that  they 
are  moral  actions  ?  Most  of  our  actions  are  probably 
simply  unmoT^L  In  our  conduct,  we  do  as  others  do 
about  us  ;  we  think  and  act  according  to  the  prevail- 
ing customs.  There  is  not  necessarily  any  hypocrisy 
in  this  ;  by  a  kind  of  natural  gravitation  we  settle 
into  the  grooves  that  are  already  prepared  for  us. 
Not  only  is  there  nothing  wrong  about  this,  but  rel- 
atively speaking  there  may  be  something  good.  So- 
ciety, perhaps,  is  scarcely  possible  (or  was,  in  the 
early  ages  of  the  world)  without  something  of  an 
instinct  of  imitation  among  men,  which  holds  in 
check  caprice  and  lawless  individualism.  Still  the 
mere  following  of  custom  and  usage,  however  use- 
ful to  society,  cannot  be  said  to  rise  to  the  dignity 
of  morality. 

A  moral  act  must  be  our  own  act.  It  must  spring 
from  conviction.  A  purely  conventional  life  is  with- 
out moral  significance.     We  begin  really  to  live  when 


WHAT  IS  A  MORAL  ACTION?  43 

we  wake  out  of  this  unconscious  instinctive  following 
of  precedents  and  customs,  and  know  that  we  are  our- 
selves and  have  minds  to  use,  and  when  we  begin  to 
use  them.  What  we  do  when  we  are  awake,  aroused ; 
what  expresses  our  individuality,  —  that  has  moral 
worth,  and  that  alone.  This  is  entirely  apart  from 
what  particular  thing  we  think  or  do,  or  whether  we 
even  join  the  popular  current  again ;  for  though  when 
one  thinks  for  himself,  it  is  unlikely  that  he  will 
not  vary  somewhat  from  the  hitherto  prevailing  cus- 
tom, the  trouble  with  the  conventional  life  is  not  as 
to  its  particular  ideas  and  customs,  but  that  it  is  con- 
ventional, that  it  expresses  no  personal,  genuine  con- 
viction. A  moral  action  may  be  in  entire  accord  with 
what  convention  demands ;  yet  it  will  always  be  vastly 
more  than  that.  Morality  is  the  assertion  of  ourselves. 
How  sad  is  his  plight  who  has  no  sacred  self ;  who 
never  falls  back  on  a  conviction,  as  a  believer  on  his 
gods,  because  he  has  none ;  who  lives  all  out-of-doors ; 
whose  soul  is  the  empty  mirror  of  the  world's  passing 
fashions  and  shows  !  A  man  who  once  defied  a  world, 
and  yet  lived  to  see  the  world  come  around  to  him, 
and  is  one  of  the  ideal  figures  in  our  country's  histo- 
ry, —  Wendell  Phillips,  —  said  in  addressing  a  mixed 
assembly  on  the  slavery  question,  "Till  you  judge 
men  and  things  on  different  principles,  I  do  not  care 
much  what  you  think  of  me  ;  I  have  outgrown  that 
interesting  anxiety. ''  ^  No  man  rises  into  the  dig- 
nity of  moral  individuality  till  he  says  the  same.  A 
man  should  have  no  other  ultimate  anxiety  than  to 
please  the  genius  of  his  own  bosom.  "  Whoso  would 
be  a  man  must  be  a  non-conformist,'^  said  Emerson ; 
1  Orations,  Speeches,  etc.,  p.  66. 


44  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

and  it  is  true  in  spirit,  if  not  always  in  form.  Man 
must  act  for  himself,  or  he  is  lost.  One  looks  abroad 
and  sees  men  and  women  blindly  following  the  ruling 
traditions  in  religion,  society,  politics,  with  scarcely 
a  serious,  lonely  thought  crossing  their  minds  :  they 
are  all  lost,  and  will  be  till  they  come  home  to  them- 
selves, and  begin  to  live  a  real,  inward,  personal  life. 
The  supreme  profanation  is  not  against  church  or 
sacrament  or  Bible,  but  against  the  clearest,  sanest 
thought  of  your  own  mind.  I  will  not  say  the  lesson, 
but  the  significance  of  morality  is,  independence  of 
public  opinion,  having  the  centre  and  rule  of  our  life 
not  in  the  world  without,  but  in  a  world  within ;  so 
that  even  if  we  harmonize  with  the  world  without,  if 
we  coincide  with  public  opinion,  it  will  be  not  as  an 
echo,  but  as  a  living  factor  in  it. 

If,  however,  a  moral  act  must  be  our  own  act,  not 
one  merely  in  accordance  with  conventional  standards, 
it  goes  almost  without  saying  that  it  must  be  one 
not  merely  followed  by  good  results,  but  one  in  which 
those  results  are  intended.  We  must  not  only  do 
good,  but  mean  to  do  good.  Yes,  the  whole  properly 
moral  significance  of  an  action  is  in  its  intention. 
Two  actions  may  have  exactly  the  same  outward  re- 
sults, yet  be  separated  by  a  heaven-wide  distance  in 
moral  worth,  according  as  they  are  prompted  by  one 
motive  or  another;  and  these  motives  are  of  course 
only  really  known,  because  alone  experienced,  by  those 
doing  th€  actions.  The  attempt  is  sometimes  made 
to  divest  ethics  of  all  these  inward  and,  as  it  is  said, 
mysterious  elements,  and  to  reduce  it  to  a  question 
simply  of  results.  Any  action  is  to  be  counted  moral 
which  has  good  results,  or  immoral  which  has  evil, 


WHAT   IS   A  MORAL  ACTION?  45 

quite  apart  from  motives.  It  is  perfectly  true  that 
an  action  does  not  have  good  results  simply  because 
they  are  intended,  —  just  as  a  thought  is  not  neces- 
sarily true  because  it  aims  at  the  truth.  Hell,  it 
has  been  said,  is  paved  with  good  intentions,  and  at 
any  rate  we  know  that  the  earth  is  well  covered  with 
them,  and  that  often  they  bring  forth  little  sound  or 
lasting  fruit.  How  many  kind-hearted  persons,  for 
example,  give  charity  in  such  a  way  that  it  does  more 
harm  than  good  !  The  trouble  is  not  with  the  kind- 
heartedness  or  the  charity,  but  with  the  lack  of  in- 
telligence that  is  displayed ;  and  the  real  remedy  is 
not  to  depreciate  charity,  but  to  light  it  up  with  in- 
telligence. An  action  really  ceases  to  have  a  moral 
quality  if  it  does  not  take  advantage  of  all  the  light 
and  knowledge  by  which  it  may  be  directed ;  and 
those  who  would  turn  ethics  into  a  species  of  social 
mechanics  do  not  realize  that  automata  would  do  as 
well  as  men  for  these  merely  outward  effects,  per- 
haps better.  Indeed,  Professor  Huxley  says  that  if 
some  great  Power  would  agree  to  make  him  always 
think  what  is  true  and  do  what  is  right,  on  condi- 
tion of  his  allowing  himself  to  be  turned  into  a  sort 
of  clock,  and  wound  up  every  morning  before  he  got 
out  of  bed,  he  should  instantly  close  with  the  offer.^ 
What  an  infinite  saving  of  pains  and  trouble  such 
an  arrangement  would  be !  Yet  I  doubt  if  there 
is  one  in  a  hundred  or  a  thousand  who  would  share 
with  Mr.  Huxley  in  such  a  readiness ;  who  would  not 
rather  say  with  Lessing,  if  God  held  out  "  truth  *'  in 
one  hand  and  "  seek  after  truth "  in  another,  that 
in  all  humility  he  would  take  "seek  after  truth." 
1  Lay  Sermons,  etc.,  p.  840. 


46  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

Why  ?  Because  the  other  attitude  would  practically 
deny  the  significance  of  our  intellectual  being;  be- 
cause we  feel  that  if  the  truth  is  grand,  the  learning 
and  so  knowing  the  truth  is  still  grander.  Any  giv- 
ing of  our  action  over  into  the  hands  of  another  Power 
is  practically  saying  that  our  moral  being  has  no  sig- 
nificance ;  while  we  on  the  other  hand  are  sure  that 
the  glory  of  the  moral  universe  is  not  alone  in  the 
good,  but  in  the  willing  of  the  good,  in  the  conscious 
voluntary  practice  of  it,  and  would  count  it  better  to 
struggle  for  and  sometimes  miss  the  good  than  that  it 
should  never  be  learned  by  finite  beings  at  all.  But 
whether  this  be  true  or  not,  any  such  mechanical 
goodness  as  Professor  Huxley  supposes  would  have 
no  moral  quality;  even  if  the  results  were  just  the 
same  as  those  following  a  properly  moral  action,  no 
praise  or  blame  would  attach  to  such  goodness  any 
more  than  to  an  operation  of  Nature.  Alexander  the 
Great,  for  example,  took  the  Greek  language  and  Gre- 
cian culture,  art,  and  manners  wherever  he  went  in 
his  military  conquests ;  and  what  a  benefit  to  the 
world,  was  this  spread  of  Greek  civilization  !  Yet  if, 
as  is  likely,  the  passion  of  Alexander  was  solely  for 
conquest  and  military  power  and  renown  ;  if  the  bene- 
fit to  the  world  came  simply  as  an  unintended  conse- 
quence, an  incident  of  his  victories, — what  moral  credit 
has  he  in  the  matter  ?  I  have  heard  it  argued  that  it 
is  impossible  for  a  man  to  follow  his  own  interests 
without  benefiting  others ;  that  one,  for  example,  can- 
not build  up  a  business  without  giving  employment 
and  a  livelihood  to  those  who  would  perhaps  other- 
wise be  in  need ;  yes,  I  have  sometimes  heard  it  urged 
in  extenuation  of  the  great  monopolies  of  our  time, 


WHAT  IS   A  MORAL  ACTION?  47 

that  in  the  nature  of  the  case  they  cannot  exist  and 
maintain  themselves  save  as  they  bring  themselves 
under  the  rule  of  service  to  others.  This  is  all  true 
enough,  perhaps,  as  matter  of  fact,  but  all  delusion  if 
the  facts  are  supposed  to  answer  to  the  requirements 
of  morality.  What  is  the  business  man  or  the  mon- 
opolist intent  on  ?  —  that  is  the  question  which  de- 
cides whether  there  is  any  moral  worth  in  what  he 
does,  or  not.  Are  the  benefits  which  come  to  others 
something  that  he  aims  at,  or  only  the  necessary  inci- 
dents in  the  accomplishing  of  his  own  personal  aims  ? 
I  think,  indeed,  the  introduction  of  higher  motives 
into  business  would  more  or  less  affect  the  manage- 
ment and  all  the  details  of  business  ;  but  I  can  im- 
agine two  businesses  externally  almost  exactly  alike, 
the  management  of  one  of  which  would  be  dominated 
by  a  moral  impulse,  and  the  other  would  be  without 
any  moral  character  whatever  (which  is  far  from  say- 
ing that  it  would  have  an  immoral  character).  The 
difference  would  be  all  in  the  thought.  Man  may 
go  astray  many  times  in  what  he  thinks  to  be  good, 
but  on  the  other  hand  no  action  which  is  without  the 
prompting  of  the  thought  of  what  is  good,  no  matter 
how  externally  good  and  right  it  may  be,  can  be  called 
a  moral  action  ;  and  every  time  we  sincerely,  honestly 
mean  to  do  what  is  right,  no  matter  how  mistaken  we 
may  turn  out  to  be  in  our  judgment,  our  action  has  a 
moral  worth.  What  we  mean  to  do,  what  we  want  to 
do,  —  that  is  all,  from  a  moral  stand-point. 

Closely  related  with  this,  is  another  mark  of  a  moral 
action ;  namely,  it  is  an  act  that  is  freely  done.  What- 
ever I  do  under  compulsion,  under  constraint,  has  no 
moral  worth.     Suppose,  to  take  a  homely  illustration, 


48  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

I  rise  early  in  the  morning  because  I  am  obliged  to ;  be- 
cause if  I  am  not  at  the  store  of  my  employer  by  a  cer- 
tain time,  I  shall  lose  my  situation,  —  plainly  there  is 
no  morality  in  this  ;  but  if  I  do  so,  not  thus  compelled, 
but  simply  with  the  feeling  that  it  is  a  good  habit, 
and  that  I  ought  to  form  it,  I  make  a  mastery  of  my 
laziness  that  has  some  moral  worth.  Suppose  I  return 
a  book  to  the  Public  Library  to  escape  a  fine,  or  on  the 
other  hand  simply  because  I  know  that  others  want 
the  book,  and  I  ought  to  consider  them  as  well  as  my- 
self, —  would  any  one  hesitate  to  say  which  action 
alone  had  any  virtue  in  it  ?  Suppose  I  live  a  sim- 
ple unpretentious  life  because  I  have  not  the  means 
to  live  otherwise ;  or  because,  though  with  abundant 
means,  I  have  a  sense  of  how  a  man  should  live,  so 
long  as  there  is  so  much  want  and  misery  in  the  world 
about  him,  —  one  would  not  need  to  reflect  long  before 
saying  which  manner  of  life,  though  they  were  so  far  as 
the  eye  could  see  exactly  alike,  had  any  moral  worth. 
The  economy  that  when  necessitated  has  almost  an  air 
of  meanness,  becomes  divine  when  practised  in  obedi- 
ence to  an  idea.  Take  again  the  case  of  an  employer 
who  yields  to  his  "striking"  employees  because  he  is 
forced  to,  because  they  have  so  arranged  matters  that 
if  he  will  not  give  them  an  advanced  rate  of  wages  he 
cannot  find  any  workmen  ;  and  then  of  another  who 
does  not  wait  for  a  strike,  and  has  no  reason  to  fear 
any,  but  pays  the  higher  rate  simply  out  of  regard 
for  his  workmen  and  with  a  thought  of  their  needs 
and  ends  as  human  beings  and  heads  of  families, — 
that  is,  not  because  he  is  obliged  to,  but  because  he 
"^ill^  —  and  can  there  be  any  hesitancy  as  to  which  one 
of  these  men  rises  to  the  dignity  of  performing  a  moral 


WHAT   IS   A   MORAL   ACTION?  49 

action  ?  Freedom,  spontaneity,  is  the  note,  the  very 
mark,  of  a  moral  action.  An  action  dictated  by  fear  is 
not  really  a  free  action,  —  as  when  King  Eichard  II. 
of  England  sought  to  quell  the  angry  revolt  of  the 
peasants  by  granting  them  the  reforms  which  they 
wanted,  and  gave  them  letters  sealed  with  his  seal, 
with  all  their  demands  formally  acceded  to  ;  and  yet 
later,  when  the  danger  was  over,  ordered  under  pains 
of  death  that  all  those  who  had  the  King's  letters 
should  deliver  them  up.  A  righteous  act,  do  we  say, 
succeeded  by  an  unrighteous  one  ?  No,  never  a  right- 
eous act  at  all,  but  only  the  forms  of  righteousness 
complied  with  through  fear.  What  we  do  when  no 
pressure  is  upon  us,  when  we  simply  have  the  thought 
of  what  we  ought  to  do,  the  free,  willing  expression 
of  the  soul  within  us, — that  alone  is  moral. 

And  a  moral  action,  further,  must  have  no  motive 
of  self-interest  behind  it.  This  is  not  saying  that 
many  interested  actions  are  not  natural,  proper,  and 
necessary,  as  the  world  now  is,  but  only  that  they  do 
not  rise  to  the  dignity  of  moral  actions.  How  in- 
stantly does  an  action  drop  to  a  lower  plane  in  our 
estimation  when  we  discover  that  some  self-regarding 
motive  lies  behind  it !  Suppose  a  man  is  honest,  and 
refrains  from  imposing  on  the  ignorant  who  come  into 
his  shop,  simply  because  he  knows  that  he  will  thereby 
build  up  a  reputation  for  honesty  and  increase  his 
chances  of  business  success,  —  do  we  do  more  than 
commend  his  sagacity ;  do  we  think  of  him  as  rising 
into  the  atmosphere  of  virtue  ?  Suppose  a  son  devotes 
himself  to  his  parents,  not  in  the  spirit  of  filial  duty, 
but  with  the  thought  that  some  advantage  will  come 
sometime  to  him  from  doing  so, — that  he  will  per- 

4 


50  ETHICAL   llELIGIOX. 

haps  be  assisted  in  business,  or  be  generously  remem- 
bered in  his  parents'  will :  do  not  such  thoughts  in 
connection  with  those  to  whom,  if  to  any  one  in  this 
wide  world,  we  should  be  unselfishly  attached,  seem  a 
kind  of  profanation,  and  recall  Shakspeare's  words,  — 

"  Love  is  not  love, 
When  it  is  mingled  with  respects  that  stand 
Aloof  from  the  entire  point/' 

Suppose  a  man  becomes  a  soldier,  not  out  of  unselfish 
attachment  to  a  cause,  but  for  hire, —  is  not  our  estimate 
of  him  all  changed  ?  Who  that  has  seen  the  magni- 
ficent creation  of  Thorwaldsen,  the  lion  carved  in  the 
solid  rock  at  Lucerne,  in  commemoration  of  the  Swiss 
Guard  that  fell  defending  the  Tuileries  in  1792,  but 
is  pained  when  the  thought  comes  over  him  that  these 
men  after  all  had  sold  themselves  for  gold,  and  in  aid 
of  a  cause  against  which  every  instinct  and  tradition 
of  liberty  in  Switzerland  would  seem  to  have  pro- 
tested ?  Suppose  a  man  marries,  I  will  not  say  for  so 
vulgar  a  motive  as  money,  but  only  because  he  is  tired 
and  wants  a  home,  and  the  rest  and  comfort  of  it,  — 
what  is  he  but  a  selfish  creature  after  all,  and  without 
any  part  in  that  experience  in  which  a  man,  if  ever, 
is  taken  out  of  himself,  and  learns,  if  never  before, 
the  disinterestedness  which  is  the  soul  of  morality  ? 

A  moral  act  is  one  in  which  we  rise  superior  to  per- 
sonal considerations  ;  there  dare  not  be  "mingled  with 
it  respects  that  stand  aloof  from  the  entire  point." 
Morality  does  not  descend  to  the  low  plane  on  which 
we  ordinarily  live,  and  seek  to  influence  us  by  show- 
ing that  we  should  be  better  off  by  adhering  to  it, 
but  takes  for  granted  that  we  have  a  higher  nature, 


WHAT  IS  A  MORAL  ACTION?  51 

and  appeals  to  us  on  the  higher,  the  highest,  ground. 
In  the  old  Antislaveiy  times,  calculating  prudent 
men  used  to  seek  to  persuade  the  slaveholders  that 
it  would  be  cheaper  to  pay  wages  than  to  own  slaves ; 
that  their  property  would  be  safer ;  that  even  those 
indispensable  luxuries  ice-cream  and  vanilla  would 
cost  less  if  the  negroes  were  placed  on  a  fair  footing ; 
and  that  the  picturesque  house-servants,  with  their 
heavy  Ethiopian  manners,  their  silent  obedience,  their 
hue  of  bronze  and  turbaned  heads,  would  find  it  to 
their  interest  to  remain  on  the  masters'  estates  even 
if  they  were  freed.  I  know  not  which  to  wonder  at 
most,  that  such  foolish  appeals  should  be  made  with 
the  slightest  hope  that  they  would  be  heeded,  or  on 
the  other  hand  that  the  citadel  and  seat  of  the  evil 
were  not  attacked,  and  it  boldly  said,  not  that  the 
slaveholders  were  not  as  far-sighted  and  business-like 
as  they  might  be,  but  that  they  were  committing  a 
wrong.  There  are  some  matters,  where  it  seems  not 
only  unmoral,  but  almost  immoral  to  appeal  to  any  but 
the  highest  motives.  There  are  some  things  sacred 
in  this  world.  We  are  told  that  Jesus  made  a  scourge 
of  small  cords  and  drove  the  money-changers  out  of 
the  Temple,  saying,  "Make  not  my  father's  house  a 
house  of  merchandise  ! "  I  have  almost  a  similar  in- 
dignation when  I  hear  the  cause  of  human  rights,  the 
cause  of  charity,  treated  from  any  other  than  the  high- 
est stand-point.  These  subjects  ought  to  lift  us  imme- 
diately to  their  level.  I  heard  a  man  not  long  ago 
advocate  more  systematic  and  effective  charity,  be- 
cause, forsooth,  if  we  thus  took  care  of  the  poor  we 
should  have  less  need  to  fear  the  spread  of  socialism. 
It  was  not  man  then  —  man  in  want,  man  in  sore  dis- 


52  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

tress  —  that  we  were  to  consider,  but  this,  that  our 
property  become  secure  against  the  attacks  of  social- 
ism !  Fie  on  it,  making  merchandise  thus  of  charity ! 
But  he  who  urges  the  cause  of  humanity  on  any  other 
grounds  than  the  highest,  respects  not  the  humanity 
of  those  who  are  in  need,  nor  the  humanity  in  us,  and 
treats  us  as  if  we  had  no  higher  nature,  and  could  not 
transcend  these  considerations  about  the  security  and 
safety  of  our  property. 

•*  Unless  above  himself  he  can 
Erect  himself,  how  poor  a  thing  is  man ! " 

Yes,  man  can  rise  above  himself ;  and  in  this  higher 
life,  animated  by  more  than  personal  affections  and 
aspirations,  is  his  home.  There  he  first  knows  himself ; 
it  is,  as  it  were,  his  native  element,  as  the  stainless 
azure  is  that  of  the  king  of  birds. 

Nor  for  considerations  of  comfort  and  personal  hap- 
piness in  another  world  does  man  need  to  be  con- 
cerned. I  hear  it  said  that  we  must  believe  in  a 
future  world,  whether  there  is  one  or  not,  to  preserve 
us  in  paths  of  virtue  here.  I  reject  the  imputation 
on  human  nature.  The  fault  with  many  churches  is, 
not  that  they  are  too  religious,  but  that  they  are  not 
religious  enough  ;  that  they  do  not  recognize  the  di- 
vine element  in  man,  —  that  they  do  not  appeal  to  it 
nor  pay  it  reverence.  What  were  the  gain,  moreover, 
if  men  were  made  ^^  moral "'  under  the  influence  of  the 
hopes  and  fears  of  another  world  ?  They  would  be 
no  better;  whatever  outward  requirements  of  moral- 
ity they  might  be  led  to  comply  with  they  would  not 
be  really  moral,  the  first  step  toward  which  is  only 
gained  by  a  renunciation  of  fears  and  hopes  of  any 


WHAT   IS   A   MORAL  ACTION?  53 

kind,  and  yielding  without  questioning  or  concern 
to  the  voice  of  duty :  they  would  still  be  their  old 
selfish  selves,  and  immortality  in  their  case  would 
be  only  a  prolongation  of  such  a  type  of  existence. 
What  claims  could  such  people  have  to  such  a  des- 
tiny, what  good  could  be  served,  what  higher  purpose 
of  the  universe  worked  out,  by  granting  them  a  new 
lease  of  life  ?  How  pitiable  is  the  view  of  a  great 
Christian  authority,  Paley,  that  prudence  and  duty 
differ  only  in  that  in  the  one  case  we  consider  what 
we  shall  gain  or  lose  in  the  present  world,  and  in  the 
other,  also  what  we  shall  gain  or  lose  in  the  world 
to  come  !  How  fittingly  does  he  in  proposing  such  a 
view  omit  all  moral  declamation,  as  he  calls  it,  about 
the  dignity  and  capacity  of  our  nature,  the  superiority 
of  the  soul  to  the  body,  of  the  rational  to  the  animal 
part  of  our  constitution,^  since  in  truth  according  to 
him  and  the  style  of  many  Christian  preachers  there 
is  no  dignity  or  divine  capacity  in  our  nature,  and  no 
difference  between  the  animal  and  the  man,  save  that 
man  has  a  spy-glass,  and  the  animal  only  his  eyes  to 
see  what  is  for  his  selfish  interests.  In  how  strik- 
ing a  contrast  is  the  strain  of  another  Christian,  Saint 
Francis  Xavier,  who  passionately  exclaims,  — 

*'  Thou,  O  my  Jesus  I  thou  didst  me 

Upon  the  cross  embrace  ; 
For  me  didst  bear  the  nails  and  spear 

And  manifold  disgrrace, 
And  griefs  and  torments  numberless. 

And  sweat  of  agony, 
E  'en  deatli  itself,  —  and  all  for  one 

Who  was  thine  enemy  ! 

1  Moral  Philosophy,  book  1.  chap.  vi. 


64  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

Then  why,  0  blessed  Jesus  Christ, 

Shall  I  not  love  thee  well  ? 
Not  for  the  sake  of  winning  heaven, 

Or  of  escaping  hell ; 
Not  with  the  hope  of  gaining  aught. 

Not  seeking  a  reward,  — 
But  as  thyself  hast  loved  me, 

O  everlasting  Lord ! " 

And  of  Saint  Theresa  it  is  said  that  she  wished  to 
have  a  torch  in  her  right  hand  and  a  vessel  of  water 
in  her  left,  that  with  the  one  she  might  burn  up  the 
glories  of  heaven  and  with  the  other  extinguish  the 
flames  of  hell,  that  men  might  learn  to  serve  God 
from  love  alone.  What  a  noble  outburst !  what  a  sub- 
lime impatience  with  the  low  views  of  man  and  reli- 
gion that  were  current  in  her  time,  —  that  are  current, 
alas,  still !  What  an  assertion  of  the  moral  nature, 
as  that  in  us  by  reason  of  which  we  can  transcend 
all  personal  hopes  and  fears,  and  serve  the  highest 
from  love  alone  !  How  near  does  it  come  to  Emer- 
son's bold  summons,  "to  turn  our  back  on  heaven," 
and  how  is  the  spirit  of  it  reflected  to  us  in  Matthew 
Arnold's  lines :  — 

"  Hath  man  no  second  life  ?     Pitch  this  one  high  ! 
Sits  there  no  judge  in  heaven  our  sin  to  see  ? 
More  strictly y  then,  the  inward  judge  obey  ! 
Was  Christ  a  man  like  us  ?     Ah!   let  us  try 
If  we  then  J  too,  can  be  such  men  as  he  !  '' 

The  glow  of  moral  health  is  in  such  lines ;  let  us 
take  them  and  be  thankful  for  them,  from  whatever 
source  they  come. 

Still  further,  and  perhaps  only  bringing  out  clearly 
what  has  already  been  implied,  a  moral  act  must  be 
done  on  principle.     If  I  merely  give  way  to  a  chari- 


WHAT   IS  A   MORAL  ACTION?  55 

table  impulse,  and  charity  is  no  principle  with  me,  my 
act  is  only  an  impulsive,  not  a  moral  one.  If  I  am 
truthful  with  a  friend,  and  deceitful  toward  another 
who  is  not  a  friend,  even  my  truthfulness  with  my 
friend  has  no  moral  value.  To  do  according  to  my  in- 
clination, —  that  is  not  morality.  Morality  is  acting 
according  to  a  rule,  or  (what  is  the  same)  a  princixjle. 
It  is  bringing  all  my  chance  inclinations,  all  my  nat- 
ural impulses  that  look  in  this  way  or  that,  into  con- 
formity with  the  rule,  —  putting  thus  order  and  stead- 
fastness and  reliability  into  my  life.  Of  how  many 
persons  is  it  not  said,  that  if  you  find  them  at  the 
proper  moment  they  will  do  the  right  thing !  But  the 
right  thing  is  for  always  ;  as  it  does  not  depend  on  our 
moods  for  its  rightness,  so  it  ought  not  for  its  reali- 
zation in  action.  The  truly  moral  man  is  simply  he 
who  says  it  shall  not;  to  whom  the  right  is  a  con- 
stant, an  abiding  rule.  I  see  not  any  way  of  escape 
from  a  universal  consecration  to  duty,  —  I  mean  to  all 
that  is  right.  Most  of  us  live  broken,  fragmentary 
lives;  we  have  our  fits  and  starts  of  goodness,  —  they 
do  not  come  to  stay  ;  and  when  we  do  one  thing  that 
is  good,  we  leave  another  undone.  "  Bursts  of  great 
heart  and  slips  in  sensual  mire,'' — how  true  is  that  of 
many  men !  How  little  of  wholeness,  of  consistency, 
of  unity  is  there  in  our  conduct !  Henry  Clay,  one  of 
the  kindliest  of  men,  open  on  almost  every  side  to  the 
gentlest  impulses,  could  yet  sacrifice  his  convictions 
and  the  welfare  of  millions,  as  Wendell  Phillips  re- 
marks, to  his  ambition.  Daniel  Webster,  with  a  great 
intellect,  and  with  a  sense  for  the  heroic  and  sublime 
too,  could  make  his  7th  of  March  speech,  and  sell  his 
intellectual  integrity  for  a  price,  which,  thank  fortune, 


56  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

he  never  got.  Yet  as  there  is  no  reason  why  we 
should  be  just  which  does  not  hold  at  all  times,  or 
why  we  should  be  true  which  does  not  hold  in  face  of 
all  temptations,  or  humane  which  does  not  hold  in 
reference  to  all  persons  whom  we  meet,  so  there  is  no 
reason  why  we  should  be  just  which  is  not  equally 
good  for  being  true,  and  none  for  being  true  which  is 
not  equally  for  being  humane.  There  is  no  reason  for 
one  virtue  which  does  not  hold  for  all  virtue ;  not  this 
or  that,  but  all  good  is  commanded  to  us.  I  suppose  a 
person  only  does  a  genuinely  moral  act  when  he  does 
it  not  because  it  happens  to  be  justice  or  truth  or  any 
particular  form  of  duty,  but  because  it  is  duty,  and  so 
with  the  implication  that  he  would  do  all  duty.  A 
moral  act  has  thus,  in  strict  truth,  a  universal  or  in- 
finite significance,  and  he  who  performs  it  has  a  worth 
to  which  no  limits  can  be  assigned.  It  is  as  if  there 
were  some  mysterious  forms  of  matter  that  could  be 
crystal  or  plant,  or  flower  or  tree,  or  sun  or  star,  any- 
thing in  the  whole  material  universe ;  for  it  is  ray 
proud  faith  in  man  that  hardened,  stiffened,  settled 
as  he  may  often  seem  to  be  in  this  or  that  type  or 
habit  of  life,  he  can  become  anything  that  is  good;  that 
he  is  at  heart  plastic  and  not  cast  in  any  inevitable 
mould ;  that  there  are  no  unapproachable  heights  out- 
side of  and  beyond  him  ;  that  hero,  saint,  martyr,  if 
need  be,  he  can  become. 

We  often  hear,  and  I  am  sorry  to  say  from  reli- 
gious teachers  particularly,  slighting  and  contemp- 
tuous words  about  morality ;  but  if  what  I  have  said 
is  true,  it  is  far  from  being  a  light  or  trifling  or  petty 
thing  to  perform  a  genuinely  moral  action.  The  dig- 
nity of  man  lies  in  his  capacity  for  such  action  j  for 


WHAT  IS  A  MORAL  ACTION?  57 

such  action  means  that  man  need  not  follow  the 
crowd,  that  his  thoughts  can  determine  him,  that  he 
can  freely  will  the  good,  that  he  can  be  absolutely 
unselfish  in  so  doing,  that  he  can  take  captive  his 
wandering  desires  and  impulses,  and  reflect  the  pure 
heaven  of  principle  in  his  life.  And  this  were,  it 
seems  to  me,  to  be  a  man  ;  this  were  to  be  lifted 
above  anxieties,  to  be  no  longer  the  slave  of  fears 
or  hopes.  The  only  hope  could  be  to  be  more  truly 
this;  the  only  fear  to  fall  from  such  a  thought  and 
such  an  aim,  and  become  caught  and  entangled  in  any 
of  the  lower  concerns  that  are  so  easy,  so  natural,  and 
tempting  to  men. 

There  is  an  ideal  aim  for  every  child  of  man.  It  is 
not  in  anything  outside  of  ourselves  ;  it  is  not  to  please 
some  supernatural  being  in  the  skies  ;  it  is  not  to  fol- 
low some  far-away  historical  figure  in  the  past.  It  is 
closer  to  us  than  this  ;  it  is  in  our  own  heart,  it  is  given 
to  us  in  our  very  nature  as  moral  beings.  There  is 
nothing  higher  than  to  perform  a  moral  action ;  there 
is  nothing  in  which  the  full  idea  and  significance  of 
our  being  comes  so  to  expression  as  in  that.  It  is  the 
victory  of  the  divine  in  us,  of  a  part  of  those  elemen- 
tal forces  which  in  the  wide  ages  of  the  past  have  been 
turning  chaos  into  order,  and  covering  darkness  with 
light.  Every  moral  action  we  perform  is  a  new  star  in 
the  inner  firmament ;  and  I  sometimes  think  that  once 
gathered  out  of  the  unformed  nebula  of  our  wishes 
and  aspirations,  these  stars  will  in  some  sense  shine 
forever.  I  sometimes  even  dare  to  think  that  if  the 
stars  of  heaven  should  fall,  these  would  not  ;  since 
the  stars  of  heaven  would  only  fall  if  something  more 
perfect  were  to  take  their  place,  and  anything  more 


58  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

perfect  than  a  moral  action  there  cannot  be.  It  could 
grow  more  perfect  only  in  itself,  —  only  by  becoming 
clearer,  fuller,  ampler,  more  divinely  radiant,  not  by 
being  resolved  and  changed  into  anything  else.  For 
a  moral  action  is  not  most  truly  any  outward  deed,  or 
any  single  partial  act  of  the  will  within ;  all  so  called 
moral  actions  are  after  all  parts  of  one  action,  and  that 
is  the  total  purpose  of  the  soul,  the  action  of  the  life. 
Notwithstanding  all  trifling  variations,  we  are  moving 
in  one  direction  or  another.  No  single  good  thing  we 
do  counts  save  as  it  is  part  of  a  purpose  which  sweeps 
on  beyond  it ;  and  no  purpose  is  adequate  which  does 
not  cover,  in  thought  at  least,  the  whole  life  and  all 
its  possible  future.  The  star  which  we  are  to  set  in 
the  firmament  is  the  total  act  of  our  life ;  after  a  time 
we  may  cease  to  see  it,  but  if  there  is  any  worth,  any 
foreshadowings  of  a  perfect  beauty  in  it,  it  will  go  on. 
Nothing  is  so  treacherous  as  memory ;  nothing  hangs 
by  so  light  a  thread  as  personality,  —  the  consciousness 
that  I  am  the  same  as  I  was  twenty -five  years  ago ;  the 
consciousness,  which  some  suppose  they  will  have  in 
another  life,  that  they  are  the  same  persons  as  they 
were  here.  It  is  all  an  uncertain  prop.  Death  ought 
to  bar  and  teach  us  the  vanity  of  these  personal  crav- 
ings ;  but  heedless  creatures  that  we  are,  we  fill  up 
those  endless  horizons  of  the  future  with  the  images 
of  our  personal  selves,  and  deem  the  goodness  we  have 
won,  the  purity  we  have  gained,  and  the  unselfish- 
ness that  has  triumphed  in  us  too  shadowy  to  stand 
of  themselves  without  the  "I"  to  support  them.  Yet 
which,  0  Man,  is  shadowy,  —  the  "I^^  or  the  good  ? 
Only  the  good  in  us  is  worthy  to  survive,  and  that 
will. 


IV. 

IS  THERE  A  HIGHER  LAW? 

WE  are  constantly  pronouncing  judgments  upon 
the  worth  of  actions.  Some  satisfy  us  and 
others  do  not ;  some  are  right  and  some  are  wrong. 
We  do  not  mean  by  this  that  they  are,  or  are  not,  of 
advantage  to  us  personally,  —  the  satisfaction  we  de- 
mand is  in  view  of  a  standard  quite  apart  from  our  per- 
sonal interests.  We  have  at  heart  certain  ideals  of 
conduct  which  we  like  to  see  reflected  in  the  actions 
of  men  about  us.  Whether  a  falsehood  or  any  wrong 
done  to  another  affects  us  or  not,  we  may  feel  none  the 
less  that  it  is  wrong,  that  it  should  not  have  been.  We 
may  understand  the  train  of  circumstances  which  led 
to  the  act,  we  may  have  a  tinge  of  sympathy  for  the 
doer  softening  our  condemnation  of  what  he  has  done; 
but  it  is  wrong,  nevertheless,  and  we  know  that  we 
should  go  too  far  with  our  sympathy  if  it  led  us  to 
forget  this.  We  may  be  mistaken  in  our  judgments 
about  particular  cases ;  motives  change  the  character 
of  acts,  and  we  do  not  always  know  the  motives.  We 
only  know  that  if  there  are  such  and  such  motives,  the 
act  is  morally  right  or  wrong ;  but  supposing  them  to 
exist,  we  pronounce  confidently  on  its  moral  character. 
The  right  is  what  should  be  ;  it  is  an  idea  having  this 
altogether  peculiar  relation  to  the  fact.    Even  if  our 


60  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

circumstances  should  change,  and  our  wishes  come 
somehow  to  be  gratified  or  our  personal  interests 
served  by  the  wrong  being  done,  it  would  be  wrong 
none  the  less,  and  we  should,  in  a  real  moment,  con- 
demn ourselves  for  desiring  it.  The  right  is,  indeed, 
independent  of  our  wishes  or  our  interests.  In  ac- 
cordance with  these  we  can  only  say  that  we  should 
like  to  have  something  be  ;  we  cannot  say  it  ought 
to  be  :  we  can  only  say  that,  as  we  rise  into  a  higher 
atmosphere,  as  we  transcend  personal  considerations, 
as  we  speak  from  the  standpoint  of  reason. 

The  right  is  also  independent  of  the  wishes  or 
personal  interests  of  another.  Eight  does  not  mean 
giving  up  my  wishes  to  your  wishes,  or  sacrificing 
my  personal  advantage  to  your  personal  advantage. 
Your  wishes  must  be  right,  must  conform  with  an 
impersonal  standard,  —  your  personal  advantage  must 
be  in  harmony  with  the  universal  advantage,  else  I 
cannot  yield  to  it.  Morality  is  not  sympathy :  in 
many  cases  it  may  be  that  I  ought  to  deny  another 
as  well  as  myself.  Sympathy  is  simply  a  natural  in- 
stinct, better  indeed  and  nobler  than  selfishness,  but 
l^ble  to  lead  us  astray  as  truly  as  selfishness  unless 
guided  and  controlled  by  moral  considerations.  Sym- 
pathy is  personal ;  morality  is  impersonal.  Even  if 
it  is  your  dearest  friend  who  has  done  a  wrong,  it  is 
none  the  less  wrong,  and  gravity  must  mingle  with 
your  tenderness  in  thinking  of  it. 

The  right  and  wrong,  we  feel  further,  are  independ- 
ent of  our  changing  opinions  about  them.  When  our 
eyes  are  open,  we  see  the  sun  ;  when  they  are  closed, 
it  is  lost  to  us  ;  should  we  become  blind,  it  would  be 
lost  to  us  forever.     In  such  a  case  vain  would  be  any 


IS   THERE   A   HIGHER  LAW?  61 

one's  effort  to  prove  to  us  that  it' still  shone,  if  we 
were  obstinate,  and  insisted  on  the  authority  of  pres- 
ent experience  alone  to  prove  that  it  did ;  but  for 
all  that  it  would  still  be  there,  and  if  we  were  rea- 
sonable and  would  call  to  mind  our  former  experience, 
we  might  be  assured  of  it.  So  there  are  moments 
in  our  moral  experience  which  outweigh  in  authority- 
all  others.  In  such  calm,  clear  moments  we  know, 
we  say,  that  we  see  the  truth  ;  at  other  times,  over- 
borne by  our  passions  or  our  prejudices,  overawed  by 
the  contrary  customs  and  opinions  of  men,  we  may 
almost  be  aware  that  we  are  losing  sight  of  it,  but 
it  is  there  all  the  same.  If  one  asks  why  we  do  not 
always  see  it  if  it  is  always  there,  the  answer  is  that 
we  do  not  always  try  to  see  it,  our  concern  being 
often  rather  to  justify  our  passions  and  our  preju- 
dices. If  one  asks  why  the  customs  and  opinions  of 
men  have  often  been  so  various  and  contradictory,  I 
answer  that  these  customs  and  opinions  have  been, 
in  the  main,  formed  by  other  than  rational  consid- 
erations. Men  have  rarely  sought,  with  a  single  eye, 
for  the  right  and  wrong  of  things ;  their  customs  and 
opinions  have  at  best  simply  a  little  morality  mixed ^ 
with  them.  The  time  is  yet  to  come  when  men,  di- 
vesting themselves  as  best  they  may  of  personal  con- 
siderations, shall  seek  to  reflect  in  their  thought  the 
pure  ideals  of  morality.  Moral  culture — I  mean  in 
general  the  disinterested  attempt  to  fashion  human 
life  after  the  ideals  of  morality  —  is  in  its  veriest 
infancy;  it  is  as  science  was  before  the  birth  of  a 
Bacon  or  a  Darwin.  Men  had  not  sought  the  truth; 
they  studied  Nature,  if  they  studied  it  at  all,  to  con- 
firm certain  old  theories  of  cosmogony  or  theology. 


62  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

Where  can  you  find  now  the  disinterested  student 
of  morality,  —  patient,  painstaking,  laborious,  scrupu- 
lous, ridding  himself  of  attachment  to  mere  custom 
and  opinion,  and  seeking  only  for  the  perfect  right  ? 
When  such  students  arise,  and  men  become  as  eager 
to  explore  the  world  of  moral  ideas  as  they  are  now 
to  explore  the  realms  of  Nature,  there  will  gradually 
arise,  I  believe,  an  increasing  agreement  as  to  moral 
conceptions,  as  there  is  now  coming  to  be  an  increas- 
ing agreement  among  disinterested  observers  as  to 
scientific  fact.  The  opinions  of  men  are  still  various 
as  to  matters  of  science;  but  we  do  not  doubt  that 
some  opinions  are  true  though  others  are  false,  for 
the  test  of  truth  is  conformity  to  fact,  —  and  fact  is 
not  various,  but  one.  Even  though  we  do  not  know 
what  opinions  are  true  and  what  are  false,  we  know 
that  such  a  thing  as  truth  or  falsehood  exists,  and  that 
it  is  for  us  to  find  them  out  in  each  particular  case. 
So  T  grant  that  as  to  many  things  we  may  not  know 
clearly  the  right  and  the  wrong;  there  may  be  various 
and  contradictory  opinions  about  them ;  and  yet  we 
may  feel  that  there  is  a  right  and  wrong,  and  that  it 
is  for  us  to  find  them  out  in  each  particular  case.  No 
more  than  the  facts  of  Nature  are  the  ideals  of  mo- 
rality dependent  on  our  opinion  of  them ;  there  is  a 
true,  a  best,  a  wholly  right  way  of  doing  everything. 
It  is  not  for  us  to  make  this,  to  try  to  create  it ;  we 
cannot,  indeed,  make  it  or  create  it  any  more  than 
we  can  the  sun  in  the  heavens;  we  have  simply  to 
discover  it. 

Granted,  however,  that  there  is  a  right  independent 
of  our  changing  wishes  and  opinions,  how,  it  may  h^ 
asked,  can  the  right  be  spoken  of  as  a  law  ?    Laws  we 


IS   THERE   A   HIGHER  LAW?  68 

know  of  in  Nature,  or  in  connection  with  the  State. 
Is  not  the  right,  it  may  be  asked,  simply  an  idea  of 
our  minds  ?  But  if  we  reflect  a  moment,  we  shall 
realize  that  it  enters  into  the  very  notion  of  right 
to  be  a  law.  The  good  and  the  right  are  simply  what 
should  he  ;  they  are  nothing  of  themselves,  they  have 
no  meaning  or  reality,  save  as  ideals  of  action.  They 
have  a  sovereign  relation  to  action,  —  they  are  laws 
of  action ;  and  I  question  if  they  are  not  more  truly 
laws  than  any  of  the  State,  or  even  of  physical  Na- 
ture. The  laws-  of  the  State  are  not  really  laws  unless 
they  are  good  laws  ;  they  do  not  bind  us.  An  im- 
moral law,  like  the  Fugitive-Slave  Law,  may  be  broken 
every  day;  it  may  be  affirmed  by  the  judge  and  com- 
manded by  the  commonwealth,  and  yet  be  no  law  at 
all.  That  only  is  a  law  which  binds  me,  to  which  I 
must  yield  allegiance  if  I  am  to  preserve  my  honor  as 
a  rational  being.  It  may  be  questioned  whether  the 
laws  of  Nature  —  the  law  of  gravitation,  for  example, 
the  law  of  cohesion,  the  law  of  chemical  affinity  —  are 
properly  called  laws  at  all ;  they  are  simply  state- 
ments of  facts,  —  regular,  constant,  invariable,  if  you 
please,  but  only  facts,  —  and  a  law  is  properly  a  pre- 
scription of  what  facts  ought  to  be.  We  may  wholly 
deceive  ourselves  if  we  think  of  the  law  of  gravita- 
tion as  anything  outside  of  the  facts  themselves,  as 
something  which,  as  we  say  in  common  parlance,  the 
facts  obey;  the  law  may  be  but  a  statement  of  the 
facts,  simply  summing  them  up  in  a  convenient  way. 
It  might  be  added  that  a  law  of  morals  is  more  truly 
a  law  than  the  so-called  laws  of  health  or  laws  of  busi- 
ness. A  law  of  health  means  that  if  we  want  a  per- 
fect physical  condition  we  must  live  in  a  certain  way, 


64  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

we  must  maintain  certain  habits ;  but  suppose  we  do 
not  aspire  to  such  a  perfect  condition,  what  do  the 
laws  of  health  signify  ?  The  laws  of  business  mean 
that  there  are  certain  essential  conditions  of  business 
success :  but  if  we  are  not  ambitious  in  that  direction, 
or  if  we  do  not  enter  upon  a  business  career  at  all, 
what  do  these  laws  of  business  signify  ?  The  laws 
of  health  and  the  laws  of  business  merely  declare 
that  if  we  desire  certain  ends,  we  must  use  certain 
means;  but  so  far  as  their  obligation  upon  us  goes, 
all  depends  upon  whether  we  desire  the  ends.  If  I 
wish  to  go  to  Europe,  I  must  cross  the  ocean ;  it  is 
the  only  possible  way  of  getting  there,  —  it  might  be 
called  the  law  of  getting  there ;  but  the  law  means 
nothing  if  I  do  not  wish  to  go.  A  law  of  morals  is 
totally  different  from  this.  It  signifies  not  only  that 
there  are  certain  means  we  must  take  to  achieve  our 
ends,  but  that  there  are  certain  ends  binding  upon 
us,  which  we  must  choose  if  we  are  to  maintain 
our  character  as  rational  beings.  The  laws  of  mor- 
als are  sometimes  sought  to  be  explained  by  show- 
ing that  they  point  the  way  which  one  must  take  to 
secure  the  general  welfare  ;  if  one  chooses  the  gen- 
eral welfare  as  his  end  in  life,  he  must  act  accord- 
ing to  these  laws,  for  experience  has  proved  that 
they  and  they  alone  conduce  to  the  general  welfare. 
But  suppose  that  one  says,  "  I  do  not  choose  the  gen- 
eral welfare,"  —  if  morality  means  nothing  more  than 
the  explanation  just  given,  what  possible  obligation 
has  it  upon  him? 

In  fact,  morality  must  mean  more  or  it  is  nothing 
at  all,  no  more  than  the  law  of  crossing  the  ocean. 
Morality  rises  above  our  wishes  and   wants   just  as 


IS   THERE  A  HIGHER  LAW?  65 

truly  in  the  determination  of  our  ends  as  of  the 
means  by  which  we  must  reach  them.  Morality  is 
nothing  but  reason  uttering  itself ;  and  there  are  ra- 
tional ends  just  as  truly  as  there  are  rational  means 
of  attaining  them.  If  a  man  does  not  choose  the 
general  welfare,  the  laws  of  morality  are  none  the 
less  binding  upon  him.  Morality  says,  You  ought  to 
choose  the  general  welfare.  It  indeed  covers  all  our 
voluntary  action ;  it  is  in  nowise  dependent  upon 
what  we  do  or  what  we  fail  to  do,  it  is  simply  an 
ideal  for  doing.  It  is  co-extensive  with  the  whole  of 
our  active  life ;  not  an  act,  nor  a  wish,  nor  a  want, 
nor  a  thought,  nor  a  judgment,  nor  any  utterance  but 
may  be  confronted  with  the  question.  Is  it  in  har- 
mony with  the  standard  of  right,  which  is  sovereign 
over  all  ? 

Thus  is  a  higher  law  unfolded  to  us  in  the  very  na- 
ture of  morality ;  it  is  given  to  us  in  our  very  con- 
stitution as  rational  beings.  We  call  it  a  higher  law 
because  it  is  independent  of  the  standard  to  which 
men  ordinarily  pay  respect.  How  powerful  is  custom ! 
how  often  does  it  almost  lull  to  sleep  the  voice  of 
conscience  !  Yet  the  question  may  always  be  raised, 
Are  the  customs  right;  do  they  conform  to  the  re- 
quirements of  the  law  that  is  above  them  ?  How 
easy  it  is  to  glide  along  with  the  current  of  popular 
sentiment,  to  think  and  love  and  hate  as  people  about 
us  do!  Yet  any  popular  sentiment  can  be  brought 
before  a  higher  bar ;  and  from  that  bar  a  judgment 
will  go  out  as  to  whether  such  sentiment  has  a  right 
to  be  and  we  have  a  right  to  follow  it,  or  whether 
it  is  our  duty  to  seek  to  reform  it.  The  higher  law 
is  independent  of  the  requirements  of  statutes.     We 

6 


66  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

can  only  say,  fortunate  are  the  statutes  if  they  reflect 
the  higher  law,  and  so  hold  up  an  ideal  for  the  peo- 
ple ;  for  if  they  do  not;  if  they  contradict  the  higher 
law,  it  and  not  they  are  to  be  obeyed.  The  whole 
meaning  of  ethics  is  in  the  sense  of  an  invisible  au- 
thority; to  bow  to  custom,  to  public  opinion,  or  to 
law,  is  moral  idolatry. 

Whence  comes  the  authority  of  this  law  that  is 
within  and  over  us  ?  The  ordinary  answers  seem  to 
me  here  entirely  to  fail.  Many  of  our  particular  du- 
ties may  have  their  sanction  in  that  they  tend  to  the 
general  welfare.  But  what  is  the  sanction  for  the  su- 
preme duty  of  seeking  the  general  welfare  ?  Who  can 
give  a  reason  for  this  ?  The  sources  of  the  author- 
ity of  the  laws  of  the  statute  book  in  our  democratic 
communities  are  in  the  will  of  the  people.  Civil 
governments,  we  say,  derive  their  just  powers  from 
the  consent  of  the  governed.  But  there  is  no  prac- 
tical consent  on  the  part  of  men  generally  to  the 
supremacy  of  the  laws  of  morality.  The  practical 
consent  of  most  men  is  to  the  law  of  individual  self- 
interest  ;  but  if  men  should  consent  to  the  laws  of 
morality,  they  would,  if  they  were  candid,  consent  to 
them  with  the  feeling  that  those  laws  had  an  inher- 
ent right  to  rule,  and  the  question  would  still  remain, 
Whence  comes  this  right  ?  Plainly,  morality  —  the 
higher  law  —  does  not  rest  on  our  consent  to  it,  nor 
is  the  right  determined  by  a  majority  or  any  kind 
of  vote.  It  is  there,  commanding  us  whether  we  con- 
sent to  it  or  not ;  our  business  is  to  give  our  alle- 
giance to  it  as  a  sovereign  whom  we  have  not  placed 
upon,  and  cannot  displace  from,  his  throne.  Ethics 
and  politics  are  distinct  in  their  methods  of  opera- 


IS   THERE   A   HIGHER  LAW?  67 

tion.  The  last  basis  for  popular  sovereignty  itself  is 
not  that  the  people  have  a  right  to  do  as  they  please, 
but  that  the  people  are  more  likely  to  rule  right  than 
any  one  man  or  class  of  men  is.  The  ultimate  au- 
thority of  the  laws  of  the  people,  just  as  truly  as 
those  of  any  king  or  lord,  rests  on  their  conformity 
to  a  higher  standard  of  justice  and  of  right.  Homer 
speaks  of  — 

"  That  worst  of  tyrants,  an  usurping  crowd."  ^ 

Socrates  knew  that  he  was  very  much  hated  by  many 
persons ;  that  if  condemned  it  would  be  owing  to  the 
malice  and  the  slander  of  the  multitude.  Democracy 
does  not  mean  any  ceasing  of  the  responsibility  of  the 
educated  and  the  intelligent,  but  is  only  a  new  oppor- 
tunity for  them,  a  new  call  upon  them  to  spread  their 
light  and  intelligence  among  the  people.  It  is  the 
ideal  destiny  of  every  human  being  to  rule  himself ; 
this  truth  is  the  moral  basis  of  democracy  :  but  the 
rule  of  one's  self  must  be  in  accordance  with  the 
thought  of  the  highest  and  the  best. 

As  little  are  the  sanctions  of  the  higher  law  to  be 
found  in  the  Bible.  It  would  be  idle  to  speak  of  this 
among  serious-minded  persons,  were  not  a  contrary 
opinion  so  commonly  expressed  in  the  community. 
"We  should  do  right  because  the  Bible  commands 
us,''  —  how  often  do  we  hear  this  expression  amtDng 
Christian  people  !  I  read  only  the  other  day  of  a 
teacher  in  one  of  our  theological  seminaries,  who  said 
he  thought  that  conscience  could  not  vary  from  the 
Bible,  —  the  consciousness  of  right  being,  as  he  de- 
clared, derived  from  the  Bible.  Yet  if  this  practical 
1  Iliad,  ii.  204. 


68  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

atheism,  this  absence  of  living  moral  conviction,  mask- 
ing itself  under  the  guise  of  reverence  for  a  book,  —  if 
this  is  in  the  teaching  of  the  leaders  of  our  churches, 
what  have  we  reason  to  believe  is  the  mental  condi- 
tion of  the  people  themselves  ?  The  Bible  belongs 
to  the  sacred  literature  of  the  world ;  but  it  does  so 
belong,  because  it  reflects  the  moral  ideals  and  aspira- 
tions of  man,  not  because  it  has  created  them.  There 
are  other  Bibles  than  that  containing  the  Hebrew  and 
Christian  scriptures  :  every  line  that  utters  a  thought 
of  the  good  and  the  just  is  a  sacred  line ;  and  out  of 
the  heart  of  man,  out  of  his  prophetic  soul,  dream- 
ing on  things  to  come,  will  yet  come  grander  Bibles 
and  more  sacred  literatures  than  any  the  past  has 
known. 

More  charity  must  we  have  for  the  view  that  the 
authority  of  the  right  is  in  some  way  connected  with 
God.  God  is  sometimes  only  a  name  for  the  invisible 
right  that  is  within  and  over  us.  When  Socrates  says, 
"  Athenians,  I  love  and  cherish  you,  but  I  shall  obey 
the  gods  rather  than  you ; "  ^  when  Peter  and  the 
apostles  answered  the  high-priest  and  his  council, 
"  We  must  obey  God  rather  than  men  ;  ^'  ^  when  Wen- 
dell Phillips  took  his  stand  with  the  right,  as  "  that 
absolute  essence  of  things  which  lives  in  the  sight  of 
the  Eternal  and  Infinite  ; "  ^  when  Antigone  set  the 
unwritten,  immovable  laws  of  the  gods  ^  above  the  pro- 
clamation of  the  king  of  Thebes,  and  paid  the  last 
honors  to  her  brother's  corpse  despite  that  proclama- 
tion, —  they,  each  and  all,  had  essentially  in  mind  the 
highest  thought  in   man,  and  they  felt  that  it  was 

i  Apoloory,  §  29.  2  Acts,  v.  29. 

3  Speeches,  p.  272.  *  Antigone,  455. 


IS   THERE   A  HIGHER  LAW?  69 

there  to  rule,  that  they  were  to  brave  anything  rather 
than  be  untrue  to  it.  "  God "  is  often,  I  suppose, 
simply  a  name  for  that  supreme  sanctity  which  is  in 
every  man's  breast,  would  he  but  become  aware  of  it. 
Socrates  says,  "Wherever  any  one  stations  himself 
because  he  thinks  it  right  to  be  there,  or  is  stationed 
by  his  commander,  there  I  think  he  ought  to  remain 
and  face  danger,  taking  into  account  neither  death  nor 
anything  else  in  comparison  with  disgrace."  ^  The 
right,  indeed,  binds  him ;  it  holds  him  as  by  a  charm 
to  the  spot  where  he  is.  The  obligation  to  stay  there 
is  ultimate ;  we  can  only  say  it  exists  in  the  reason 
and  nature  of  things.  And  if  by  the  term  "God'^  was 
meant  simply  the  reason  and  nature  of  things,  it  might 
perhaps  be  freely  used;  but  the  word  means  some- 
thing else  to  most  persons.  If  one  should  speak  of 
the  reason  and  nature  of  things  to  many,  they  would 
not  understand  him  ;  if,  instead,  he  should  use  the 
word  "  God,"  they  would  think  they  did.  But  in  truth 
they  might  not  understand  him  any  better  in  the  one 
case  than  in  the  other,  for  they  would  think  that  he 
meant  by  "  God  "  what  they  mean  by  it ;  and  as  they 
use  the  term  it  is,  perhaps,  to  him  Aherglmibe  (extra- 
belief).  To  them  the  Deity  is  a  person;  and  what 
perhaps  was  once  a  metaphor,  a  figure  of  speech,  bor- 
rowed from  the  shining  sky  above,  they  have  hard- 
ened into  a  dogma ;  and  they  think  that  the  laws  of 
morality  are  laws  because  he  commands  them,  and 
we  are  to  obey  them  out  of  reverence  for  him.  But, 
in  truth,  if  the  Deity  is  something  thus  additional  to 
morality,  if  he  is  a  person  giving  commands  in  the 
literal  sense,  he  gives  no  authority  to  his  commands, 
1  Apology,  §  28. 


70  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

but  rather  they  give  authority  to  him.  "No  human  or 
divine  will  can  make  anything  right  that  is  not  of 
itself  right.  If  this  were  possible,  it  would  follow 
that  if  that  will  commanded  what  was  wrong,  it  would 
cease  to  be  wrong ;  and  hence  there  would  be  a  total 
subversion  of  moral  distinctions.  The  noblest  Chris- 
tian theologians  have  held  to  a  right  independent  of 
the  will  of  God,  and  made  their  best  claims  for  a  wor- 
ship of  the  divine  will  in  that  it  perfectly  accords 
with  that  right.     Eobert  Browning  says, — 

"...  justice,  good,  and  truth  were  still 
Divine,  if,  by  some  demon's  will, 
Hatred  and  wrong  had  been  proclaimed 
Law  through  the  worlds,  and  right  misnamed.*' ^ 

If  this  is  true,  the  last  answer  to  the  question  as  to 
the  sources  of  the  authority  of  the  higher  law  fails  as 
truly  as  the  first.  In  fact,  there  is  no  answer ;  there 
are  no  sources  for  that  supreme  authority.  We  cannot 
go  beyond  the  law  of  right;  God  is  not  more  ultimate ; 
human  reason  is  but  that  in  us  which  perceives  it.  It 
indeed  has  no  origin  ;  its  source  is  not  in  the  heavens 
or  the  earth ;  it  is  a  final,  irrevocable,  uncreated  law,  — 
I  might  say,  the  everlasting  adamant  on  which  the 
moral  universe  is  built.  It  is  the  same  as  the  old 
Stoic  philosophers  called  the  law  of  Nature,  contrast- 
ing, as  it  did,  in  so  many  ways  with  the  law  of  nations ; 
the  same  as  the  Eoman  lawyers  thought  of  as  an  ideal 
after  which  to  re-fashion  the  great  mass  of  traditional 
Eoman  law.  It  is  the  same  as  that  which  in  the  eyes 
of  our  forefathers  gave  the  basis  for  the  natural  and 
inalienable  rights  of  man.  It  is  the  same  as  prompted 
1  Christmas  Eve,  xvii. 


IS   THERE   A  HIGHER  LAW?  71 

the  exclamation  of  Sophocles,  "  Oh  that  my  lot  might 
lead  me  in  the  path  of  holy  innocence  of  thought  and 
deed,  the  path  which  august  laws  ordain,  —  laws  which 
in  the  highest  heaven  had  their  birth,  neither  did  the 
race  of  mortal  man  beget  them,  nor  shall  oblivion  ever 
put  them  to  sleep;  the  power  of  God  is  mighty  in 
them,  and  groweth  not  old  !  "  ^  It  is  the  same  as  that 
of  which  Cicero  said  that  we  can  take  nothing  from  it, 
change  nothing,  abrogate  nothing;  that  neither  the 
Senate  nor  the  people  have  a  right  to  free  us  from  it. 
It  is  the  same  as  Kousseau  had  in  mind  when  he  said 
that  the  eternal  laws  of  ;^?ature  and  of  order  are  still 
in  being,  and  supply  the  place  of  positive  laws  in  the 
eye  of  the  man  of  discernment ;  ^  as  Voltaire,  when  he 
said  that  the  sentiment  of  justice  is  so  natural,  so  uni- 
versally felt  by  mankind,  that  it  seems  to  be  indepen- 
dent of  all  law,  all  party,  all  religion.  The  higher 
law  is  that  indeed  which  gives  mankind  its  goal ;  it  is 
the  foundation  of  States  ;  it  is  the  basis  for  all  the 
worth  and  dignity  of  human  life. 

That  this  law  is  no  mere  fancy,  but  a  reality  and 
a  power  in  human  history,  is  shown  in  this,  —  that 
nothing  which  is  not  in  accordance  with  it  can  last.  I 
have  not  defined  this  law ;  I  have  taken  for  granted 
that  we  all  have  some  sense  of  it.  Its  practical  mean- 
ing may  be  discovered  in  the  different  virtues  which 
we  all  have  as  ideals  in  our  minds.  Precise  scientific 
statements  are  not  always  desirable,  even  if  they  are 
possible,  in  treating  of  so  great  a  theme.  It  satisfies 
me  in  a  general  way  to  say  that  the  higher  law  is 
that  which  commands  us  to  seek  the  universal  good. 
1  Oedipus  Tyrannus,  863  ff.  2  :&miie. 


72  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

Another  statement  might  be  that  every  man  has  the 
ends  of  a  man,  and  is  hence  to  be  treated  as  sacred  and 
inviolable.  My  point  now  is,  that  if  we  do  not  so  re- 
spect every  man,  we  offend  the  higher  law ;  and  if  there 
are  many  in  a  community  who  have  a  similar  disregard, 
the  fate  of  that  community  is  sealed.  Things  are  so 
ordered  that  righteousness  alone  is  stability  and  last- 
ing order  and  permanent  peace.  We  did  not  make 
this  so,  and  we  cannot  change  it ;  it  is  a  part  of  the 
nature  of  things,  which  overrides  our  will  and  makes 
light  of  our  intentions  ;  it  signifies  that  we  are  in 
other,  stronger  hands  than  our  own.  The  prophets  of 
the  old  time  were  simply  those  who  took  the  side  of 
the  higher  law,  denounced  the  wickedness  and  the  cor- 
ruption that  they  saw  about  them,  and  prophesied  the 
disaster  and  ruin  that  would  inevitably  follow.  Greek 
tragedy  is  full  of  this  thought ;  it  is  religious,  even  as 
the  prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament  are.  The  higher 
laws  are  not  dead,  stupid,  indifferent  things,  but  quick 
and  alive,  and  know,  so  to  speak,  when  they  are  of- 
fended. You  cannot  escape  the  consequences  of  any 
wrong  you  commit ;  if  you  do  not  suffer,  society  will 
suffer,  your  children  will  suffer  :  somehow  the  wrong 
must  be  expiated.  There  is  a  moral  order  in  the 
world,  holding  up  to  us  what  we  should  do,  and  aveng- 
ing itself  upon  us  if  we  do  not  do  it.  History  is  but 
an  impressive  lesson  of  this.  The  Greeks  spoke  of 
the  Furies  that  followed  and  would  sooner  or  later 
overtake  the  guilty  man ;  the  Hebrews  spoke  of  the 
wrath  of  the  Eternal  against  the  doers  of  wickedness. 
These  metaphors,  these  figures  of  speech,  are  not  more 
but  less  than  the  fact.  The  injured  majesty  of  justice 
will  avenge  itself.     "As  the  whirlwind  passeth,  so  is 


IS  THERE  A  HIGHER  LAW?  75 

the  wicked  no  more,  but  the  righteous  is  an  everlast- 
ing foundation."  ^ 

Time  may  be  necessary  for  the  proving  of  this. 
Our  indignation  at  wrong  and  injustice  often  fails  to 
have  immediate  satisfaction  ;  but  time  brings  it  around 
to  us,  —  if  not  to  us,  then  to  those  who  inherit  the  sense 
of  indignation  from  us.  For  the  spectacle  of  righteous 
retribution  is  not  made  for  our  personal  satisfaction, 
it  works  itself  out  on  its  own  account ;  happy  are 
we,  we  may  say,  if  we  are  privileged  to  see  the  con- 
summation, but  the  consummation  will  come  whether 
we  see  it  or  not.  The  end  and  issue  of  present  wrongs 
are  in  the  future,  —  they  are  hid  from  our  eyes;  but 
the  end  and  issue  of  past  wrongs  are  plain  before 
us.  What  have  become  of  Assyria,  of  Babylon,  those 
mighty  empires  that  at  their  height  of  sway  felt  a 
boding  sense  come  on,  —  a  sense  that  their  huge  frames 
were  not  constructed  right,  — 

"  And  drooped,  and  slowly  died  upon  their  throne."  2 

They  rested  on  violence,  they  were  permeated  with 
immorality,  they  were  doomed  to  fall.  What  has  be- 
come of  Greece,  whom  her  art  and  her  literature  and 
her  philosophy  could  not  save  ?  —  Greece,  of  whom 
Matthew  Arnold  says  that  every  educated  man  must 
love  her  ?  —  Greece,  who  was  the  lifter  up  to  the  na- 
tions of  the  banner  of  art  and  science,  and  yet  brilliant 
as  she  was,  perished  for  lack  of  attention  enough  to 
conduct,  for  want  of  conduct,  steadiness,  character.' 
What  has  become  of  Home,  stretching  her  empire  so 
grandly  as  she  did  over  the  western  world,  whom  her 

1  Proverbs,  x  25.  2  Matthew  Arnold :  Poems. 

8  Ibid.,  Literature  and  Dogma. 


74  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

Ciceros  and  Antonines,  and  schools  of  great  jurists 
failed  to  save  ?  Gone  down  because  of  luxury,  because 
of  sensuality,  because  of  the  idleness  of  the  higher 
classes  and  the  slavery  of  the  lower ;  because  of  the 
contempt  of  human  beings,  because  of  great  estates, 
because  of  inequality.  What  was  the  French  revolu- 
tion, —  I  mean  the  horrors  and  the  bloodshed  of  it, 
that  which  made  it,  as  some  one  has  said,  "  a  truth 
clad  in  hell-fire,"  —  what  was  it  but  a  righteous  judg- 
ment upon  a  corrupt  church,  a  corrupt  monarchy,  a 
corrupt  society,  —  a  penalty  visited  upon  France  by 
the  offended  justice  of  things  ? 

What  was  the  late  war  in  this  country  but  the 
natural  and  unescapable  result  of  a  wrong  that  was 
permitted  to  fester  in  the  vitals  of  the  nation,  and 
came  near  to  consuming  it  away  ?  The  statesmen  be- 
fore the  war  thought  to  compromise  with  the  wrong ; 
they  hid  themselves  under  the  forms  of  law  and  the 
Constitution.  But  the  compromises  and  the  wrongs 
permitted  by  the  Constitution  were  part  causes  of 
the  war ;  the  war  was  a  judgment  on  the  country 
for  permitting  such  compromises,  for  having  such  a 
Constitution.  Wendell  Phillips  used  to  say  that  the 
sentiment  of  justice  was  something  ^^  against  which 
no  throne  is  potent  enough  to  stand,  no  constitution 
sacred  enough  to  endure  ;  "  and  he  used  to  charge  his 
hearers,  "  Ee member  this  when  you  go  to  an  anti- 
slavery  gathering  in  a  schoolhouse,  and  know  that 
weighed  against  its  solemn  purpose,  its  terrible  reso- 
lution, its  earnest  thought,  Webster  himself,  and  all 
huckstering  statesmen  in  the  opposite  scale,  shall  kick 
the  beam.''  ^  The  prophecy  has  come  true,  — the  huck- 
1  Speeches,  p.  50. 


IS  THERE  A  HIGHER  LAWI  75 

stering  statesmen  have  kicked  the  beam,  and  now  no 
man  wants  to  have  it  known  that  he  or  his  father  had 
any  sympathy  with  those  statesmen.  "  How  shall  a 
feeble  minority,"  cried  Phillips,  "  without  weight  or 
influence  in  the  country,  with  no  jury  of  millions  to 
appeal  to,  denounced,  vilified,  and  contemned,  —  how 
shall  we  make  way  against  the  overwhelming  weight 
of  some  colossal  reputation,  if  we  do  not  turn  from 
the  idolatrous  present  and  appeal  to  the  human  race  ? 
Saying  to  your  idols  of  to-day,  '  Here  we  are,  de- 
feated; but  we  will  write  our  judgment  with  the  iron 
pen  of  a  century  to  come,  and  it  shall  never  be  for- 
gotten, if  we  can  help  it,  that  you  were  false  in  your 
generation  to  the  claims  of  the  slave.' ''  ^  Well,  brave 
soul,  it  will  never  be  forgotten  ;  your  appeal  to  the 
human  race  is  already  heard  ;  you  were  not  defeated ; 
the  reputation  which  was  so  colossal  in  your  day 
weighs  very  lightly  upon  us  now,  and  the  man  who 
could  speak  contemptuously  of  the  higher  law,  — 
"  some  higher  law,"  Webster  said,  "  something  exist- 
ing somewhere  between  here  and  the  third  heaven,  I 
do  not  know  where,"  —  he  lives  in  our  national  his- 
tory in  no  small  measure  to  be  excused  and  apolo- 
gized for. 

What  are  the  outrages  now  and  then  cropping  out 
in  Ireland,  the  assassinations  now  and  then  taking 
place  in  Russia,  but  the  furies  of  an  avenging  justice  ? 
Sydney  Smith  said  that  at  the  mention  of  Ireland 
"  the  English  seem  to  bid  adieu  to  common-sense,  and 
to  act  with  the  barbarity  of  tyrants  and  the  fatuity  of 
idiots ; "  Byron  called  England's  union  with  Ireland 
*^the  union  of  the  shark  with  his  prey;"  Burke 
*  Speeches,  p.  114. 


76  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

affirmed  that  Ireland  ^^only  got  justice  from  England 
when  demanded  at  the  sword's  point ; "  and  Glad- 
stone himself  confesses  that  England  never  concedes 
anything  "  except  when  moved  to  do  so  by  fear."  ^ 
If  this  is  true,  is  there  not  a  call  for  avenging  furies  ? 
And  of  Eussia,  what  description  is  better  than  that 
made  long  ago,  and  repeated  by  Phillips,  —  "a  despot- 
ism tempered  by  assassination  "  ?  Is  Nihilism  any- 
thing more  than  as  Phillips  declared,  "  the  last  weapon 
of  victims,  choked  and  manacled  beyond  all  other  re- 
sistance "  ?  "  God  means,"  Phillips  continued,  and 
that  is  only  saying  that  justice  demands,  "  that  unjust 
power  be  insecure  ;  and  every  move  of  the  giant  pros- 
trate in  chains,  whether  it  be  to  lift  a  single  dagger  or 
stir  a  city's  revolt,  is  a  lesson  in  justice." 

All  the  unrest,  all  the  disorder,  all  the  strikes  and 
outbreaks  in  our  country  are  simply  proofs  that  the 
equilibrium  of  justice  is  not  reached.  Men  are  for 
peace,  when  the  conditions  of  peace  do  not  exist.  Let 
men  do  justice,  let  the  State  witness  for  it,  let  every 
shop  and  factory  and  means  of  intercourse  and  trans- 
portation be  a  scene  of  it,  —  and  we  shall  have  peace 
fast  enough.  When  "  order  reigns  in  Warsaw  "  there 
is  spiritual  death.  Disorder,  confusion,  uprisings  are 
signs  of  spiritual  life,  proofs  that  there  are  thoughts 
stirring  in  the  hearts  of  men,  that  they  will  not  be  con- 
tent till  they  have  a  chance  to  become  something  like 
what  they  ought  to  be.  Justice  will  not  let  us  have 
rest  till  we  have  satisfied  her  claims  ;  society,  as  an- 
other ideal  voice  in  American  history  (Channing)  has 
said,  will  be  shaken,  and  deserves  to  be  shaken,  till  its 

1  See  Wendell  Phillips's  "  The  Scholar  in  the  Republic,"  from 
which  I  have  taken  these  quotations. 


IS   THERE   A   HIGHER   LAW?  77 

solemn  debt  to  the  poor  and  ignorant  is  paid.  So  does 
the  higher  law  make  itself  known,  not  only  directly 
to  the  conscience,  but  in  the  course  and  development 
of  human  history,  and  in  the  unrest  and  disquiet  of 
to-day. 

The  higher  law  is  the  solution  of  our  social  prob- 
lems. It  was  but  one  minor  political  application  of 
it,  that  to  slavery.  There  is  demanded  an  applica- 
tion wherever  man  is  dishonored,  whether  civill}^  free 
or  not.  The  rule  applies  everywhere,  Treat  each  man 
with  whom  you  are  in  contact  as  having  the  ends  of  a 
man,  and  as  far  as  in  you  lies  help  him  to  realize  those 
ends.  What  are  the  ends  of  man  ?  I  need  not  at- 
tempt any  formal  enumeration.  What  are  the  things 
that  we  deem  suitable  and  proper  for  ourselves  ? 
What  is  good  for  us,  what  is  dear  to  us,  is  likely  to 
be  good  for  others.  May  we  not  suppose  that  others 
would  like  a  living  income,  a  decent  home,  some  lei- 
sure for  thought,  for  the  culture  of  the  higher  part  of 
their  nature  ?  If  I  am  told  that  in  some  cases  they 
do  not  care  for  these  things,  that  they  have  no  ambi- 
tion for  more  than  a  hand-to-mouth  existence,  that 
they  live  a  stupid,  brutalized  life,  and  are  content  with 
it,  must  we  not  ask,  as  Matthew  Arnold  said  English- 
men must  when  they  think  of  the  outpourings  of  Irish 
Catholic  resentment  upon  themselves.  Whose  fault  is 
it  ?  ^  Is  it  not  society's  fault,  in  part,  that  these  men 
have  had  to  live  a  hand-to-mouth  existence,  and  to 
become  content  with  it  ?  —  because,  forsooth,  it  was 
almost  vain  for  them  when  left  to  themselves  to  strive 
for  more,  and  they,  as  a  rule,  have  been  left  to  them- 
1  God  and  the  Bible,  p.  45. 


78  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

selves.  Have  we  the  heart,  when  we  think  of  this,  to 
talk  so  glibly  of  their  brutalized  life  ?  They  will  go 
on  living  so,  it  is  to  be  feared,  till  we  become  brothers 
to  them,  till  we  carry  to  them,  and  keep  ever  in  our- 
selves, the  thought  of  what  they  are  ideally  called  to 
be.  If  no  law  of  business,  no  law  of  the  State,  com- 
mands this,  shall  we  not  say  that  the  higher  law 
commands  it  ?  —  that  law  which  contemplates  us  all 
as  brothers,  and  gives  us  our  duty  as  grounded  in 
that  relation,  and  knows  of  no  limits  to  our  duty  save 
those  inhering  in  a  universal  honor  and  love  ?  If 
this  is  our  true  relation ;  if,  as  Marcus  Aurelius  said,^ 
we  are  made  for  co-operation,  like  feet,  like  hands,  like 
eyelids ;  if  it  is  contrary  to  nature  to  be  angry  with 
our  kinsmen,  or  to  hate  them,  or  to  be  indifferent  to 
them,  —  then  does  so  much  that  we  waste  on  what  is 
superfluous  belong  to  us  to  waste ;  does  so  much  of 
the  time  that  we  devote  to  our  selfish  interests  belong 
to  ourselves;  is  there  not  a  call  for  humanity  over- 
leaping all  conventional  limits,  a  humanity  that  shall 
assert  practically  in  our  daily  lives  our  brotherhood 
with  the  poorest  and  the  least  ?  The  higher  law  is,  in 
truth,  still  in  advance  of  and  above  the  ordinary  prac- 
tice and  ordinary  thoughts  of  men.  Men  do  not  dream 
of  the  duties  that  really  belong  to  them  ;  they  are 
content  with  the  average  standards  of  morality  about 
them.  They  would  not  countenance  slavery,  oh,  no ! 
but  that  which  made  slavery  wrong  makes  anything 
wrong  which  hinders  or  makes  impossible  a  free  pro- 
gress of  every  individual  to  what  is  highest  and  best. 
The  higher  law  is  inconsistent  with  the  customary 
law  of  wages;  the  higher  law  is  inconsistent  with 
*  Meditations,  ii.  1 


IS   THERE   A   HIGHER  LAW?  79 

the  subjection  of  women,  with  all  that  view  of  her 
as  a  mere  attendant  and  helpmeet  for  man ;  it  is 
inconsistent  with  any  home  where  one  person  exists 
to  serve  and  another  to  be  served ;  it  calls  for  a 
universal  application  of  the  rule  of  respect  and  honor 
and  love. 

For  the  higher  law  is  not  a  beautiful  speculation  to 
indulge  in  ;  it  calls  for  a  higher  life.  If  we  win  a 
thought  in  advance  of  the  common  practice  of  the  day, 
it  is  a  summons  to  us  to  lift  our  life  to  a  new  level, 
and  contribute  so  much  to  the  onward  movement  of 
the  world.  If  we  are  but  vaguely  ill  at  ease,  as  we 
think  of  the  present  condition  of  society,  it  may  be 
that  thereby  the  spirit  of  progress  marks  us  out  and 
gives  us  the  first  presentiments  of  the  work  it  has  for 
us  to  do.  Discontent  because  our  personal  wants  and 
wishes  are  not  gratified  may  be  far  from  noble  ;  but 
discontent  with  ourselves  and  our  lives  in  view  of  the 
suggestions  of  an  idea  that  calls  us  up  higher,  —  there 
is  something  almost  sacred  about  that.  Every  stirring 
of  this  discontent  signifies  that  we  are  not  really  at 
home  in  the  world  as  it  is ;  that  in  some  sense  we  have 
a  better  country,  and  belong  to  another  order  of  things. 
There  are  those  who  tell  us  it  will  not  do  to  have  our 
ideals  too  high  ;  that  this  would  unfit  us  for  life  as  it 
is.  They  forget  that  it  is  not  necessarily  our  place 
to  accept  life  as  it  is,  —  that  our  duty  may  be  to  help 
make  it  over.  It  is  sometimes  said,  with  reference 
to  our  public  life,  that  to  act  with  entire  honesty 
and  self-respect  one  needs  always  to  live  in  a  pure 
atmosphere,  and  it  is  added  that  the  atmosphere  of 
politics  is  impure.  Is  one,  then,  to  accept  his  atmos- 
phere, as  if  it  were  something  given  to  him,  and  not 


80  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

to  know  that  he  may  be  himself  a  factor  in  creat- 
ing it  ?  A  man  with  a  too  keen  sense  of  rectitude, 
says  Herbert  Spencer,  a  too  elevated  standard  of  con- 
duct, might  find  life  intolerable  and  impossible.^  Im- 
possible ?  No,  unless  in  those  rare  times  when  for 
high  reasons  it  were  better  not  to  live.  Intolerable  ? 
Yes ;  and  the  sense  that  it  was  so  would  prompt  to 
the  necessary  efforts  to  make  life  tolerable.  Intoler- 
able wrongs  ?  — then  we  will  overthrow  them.  Intol- 
erable circumstances  ?— then  we  will  revolt  against 
them. 

"  He  either  fears  liis  fate  too  much, 
Or  his  deserts  too  small, 
Wiio  dares  not  put  it  to  the  touch, 
To  gain  or  lose  it  all."  2 

But  with  a  thought  of  some  higher  good,  I,  in  real 
truth,  believe  that  we  cannot  lose  or  fail.  The  world 
is  meant  to  go  that  way,  —  it  is  in  its  make  and  na- 
ture to  do  so ;  and  every  effort,  every  thought,  is  sim- 
ply a  new  beginning,  a  new  impulse  to  that  onward 
movement.  The  only  thing  that  fails  in  this  world 
is  wrong,  —  fails,  though  it  takes  men  and  nations 
with  it,  and  involves  them  in  ruin.  The  good  is  that 
which  preserves  and  keeps  alive.  I  almost  fancy  at 
times  that  if  a  perfectly  just  society  should  ever  come 
to  be,  it  would  never  cease  ;  that  the  elements  would 
wax  kind  for  it ;  that  the  earth  would  put  off  its  day 
of  final  destruction  to  do  it  honor,  —  or  if  that  dire 
event  should  ever  come,  that  the  divine  society  would 
then  be  transported  to  some  happy  isles,  "  ever  fertile, 
clear  in  atmosphere,  and  unvexed  with  storms,''  and 

1  Education,  p.  169. 

2  Marquis  of  Montrose  (1612-1660J. 


IS   THERE   A   HIGHER  LAW?  81 

be  dowered  with  immortality.  But  whether  or  no,  we 
belong  to  such  a  society.  The  higher  law  that  sounds 
within  us  is  sign  that  we  belong  to  another  state 
than  that  in  which  we  live,  to  a  divine  commonwealth ; 
and  a  man  is  to  remember  this  higher  citizenship  as  he 
walks  the  streets  of  his  earthly  city,  —  it  is  to  keep  him 
erect  while  he  walks  there,  and  from  aught  that  is  un- 
becoming or  mean  or  common.  Lying  is  not  the  law 
of  that  ideal  commonwealth,  and  it  is  not  for  him  to 
lie  ;  honor  is  before  gain  there,  and  his  first  thought 
should  be  to  keep  himself  spotless  here  ;  selfishness 
is  not  neatly  matched  with  selfishness  there,  and  it  is 
for  him  to  live  in  an  element  of  disinterested  love 
now.  The  only  thing  he  may  have  now  that  he  will 
find  no  room  for  there,  is  indignation  at  and  resistance 
to  wrong;  and  even  these  cannot  become  settled  habits 
with  him,  for  they  exist  only  to  the  end  of  removing 
all  wrong ;  and  when  that  time  shall  come,  should  he 
ever  see  it,  delight  and  joy  and  thanksgiving  will  take 
the  place  of  all  other  emotions.  To  act  now,  not  ac- 
cording to  our  poor  human  statutes  and  conventions, 
but  according  to  the  higher  perfect  law  that  we  know 
only  within  our  own  breast ;  to  live  here  as  the  citizen 
of  an  ideal  kingdom,  —  that,  it  seems  to  me,  were  the 
proudest  distinction  a  man  could  crave.  That  king- 
dom is  not  yet;  only  the  thought  and  the  law  of  it  are 
in  us,  and  the  kingdom  is  to  be.  We  are  to  make  that 
kingdom,  and  we  know  of  its  possibilities  nowhere 
else  than  here.  A  great  creative  responsibility  rests 
upon  mankind  and  upon  us  for  our  measure  of  the 
task.  To  be  as  good  as  our  fathers,  said  Phillips,  we 
must  be  better.  The  duties  of  their  day  were  new  to 
them ;  let  it  not  surprise  us  if  there  are  duties  for  us 

6 


82  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

and  the  future  that  have  never  dawned  on  mankind 
before.  Duty  is  like  the  truth,  —  we  are  ever  discov- 
ering it.  The  principles,  the  great  laws,  may  be  old  : 
their  applications,  their  practical  meaning  in  our  lives, 
are  ever  new. 

"New  occasions  teach  new  duties, 

Time  makes  ancient  good  uncouth ; 
They  must  upward,  still,  and  onward, 
Who  would  keep  abreast  of  truth  !  "  ^ 

1  J.  R.  Lowell. 


IS  THERE  ANYTHING  ABSOLUTE   ABOUT 
MORALITY? 

IT  is  sometimes  thought  that  morality  is  entirely  a 
matter  of  changing  custom  and  opinion.  One  per- 
son holds  one  thing  to  be  right,  another  another,  and 
each,  it  is  said,  has  an  equal  right  to  his  opinion, — 
both  are  equally  near  the  truth,  for  there  is  no  truth 
in  this  case  apart  from  what  each  one  thinks.  It  is, 
of  course,  impossible  that  there  should  be  any  strength 
or  ardor  of  moral  conviction  among  those  who  habit- 
uate themselves  to  such  a  view.  Moreover,  if  it  be 
correct,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  there  can  be  such  a 
thing  as  a  science  of  morality.  If  morality  is  but  the 
varying  opinions  and  practices  of  man  from  primitive 
times  down,  we  can  indeed  arrange  and  classify  them, 
and  have  as  the  result  a  sort  of  moral  sociology,  —  but 
we  can  no  more  have  a  science  of  morality  than  we 
should  have  a  science  of  astronomy  by  gathering  and 
arranging  all  the  notions  of  men  about  the  heavenly 
bodies  from  Homer's  time  to  the  present.  Science  is 
not  an  account  of  opinions,  but  of  those  opinions  that 
are  believed  to  be  true ;  and  if  ethics  is  robbed  of  the 
notion  of  truth  (that  is,  harmony  with  an  objective 
standard),  its  scientific  pretensions  must  be  abandoned. 
But  it  is  easier  to  raise  questions  than  to  answer 
them ;  and  if  by  morality  is  meant  only  the  actual 
conduct  of  men,  we  have  plainly  to  negative  our  ques- 


84  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

tion,  and  say  there  is  nothing  absolute  about  moral- 
ity, since  the  conduct  of  men  has  been  after  any  but 
a  fixed,  unvarying  type.  Human  beings  have  yielded 
to  all  the  varied  and  contradictory  passions  of  their 
nature.  They  have  hated  and  loved ;  been  cruel  and 
kind  ;  false  and  faithful ;  and  there  is  hardly  a  con- 
ceivable vice  or  virtue  that  has  not  been  illustrated  in 
their  lives.  If  any  one  law  has  been  followed,  it  is  one 
opposed  to  morality,  rather  than  one  exemplifying  it ; 
namely,  the  law  according  to  which  each  one  seeks  his 
own  selfish  interest  and  pleasure.  Freeman  tells  us  of 
the  old  Frankish  games,  in  which  thousands  of  prison- 
ers of  war  were  given  over  to  the  jaws  of  wild  beasts 
in  the  amphitheatres.^  Gregory,  the  ecclesiastical  his- 
torian, gives  an  account  of  a  certain  Duke  Eaukhing, 
who  amused  himself  by  plucking  out  the  hairs  of  a 
serf,  —  the  tears  of  the  serf  exciting  transports  of  de- 
light in  his  master. 2  There  may  be  a  uniform  psycho- 
logical law  in  accordance  with  which  men  have  acted ; 
namely,  that  each  one  does  what  he  most  desires  to 
do,  or  what  it  pleases  him  best  to  do,  or,  in  a  word, 
according  to  his  greatest  pleasure.  But  this  law  has 
no  moral  significance,  since  in  equal  consistency  with 
it  both  moral  and  immoral  actions  are  performed.^ 
No  uniform  moral  law  is  discoverable  in  the  actual 
conduct  of  men. 

But,  strictly  speaking,  morality  is  not  an  account  of 
how  men  act,  but  of  how  they  feel  they  ought  to  act. 

1  Fortnightly  Review,  October,  1869. 

2  History,  v.  3. 

2  Cf.  some  remarkably  acute  observations  in  Georg  von  Gizy- 
cki's  Grundziige  der  Moral,  S.  33,  ff. ;  also  his  just  published 
Moralphilosophie,  S.  92,  ff. 


IS  ANYTHING  ABSOLUTE  ABOUT  MORALITY?     85 

We  must  certainly  distinguish  between  what  men  do, 
and  even  delight  in  doing,  and  what  they  morally  ap- 
prove. When  we  think  of  Jengis  Khan  signalizing  his 
first  victory  by  casting  seventy  prisoners  into  caldrons 
of  boiling  water ;  or  of  Timour  massacring  a  hundred 
thousand  Indian  prisoners,  and  erecting  a  pyramid  of 
ninety  thousand  human  heads  on  the  smoking  ruins  of 
Bagdad ;  or  of  Attila  totally  extirpating  and  erasing 
seventy  cities,^  —  we  are  hardly  to  imagine  that  they 
thought  it  right  to  do  these  monstrous  deeds,  nor,  on 
the  other  hand,  that  they  were  aware  it  was  wrong; 
they  probably  simply  yielded  to  the  barbarous  im- 
pulses of  their  natures,  without  conscience  one  way 
or  the  other.  Such  outbursts  of  cruelty  are  probably 
attended  with  as  little  moral  feeling  as  an  earthquake, 
or  an  eruption  of  a  volcano.  So  when  we  are  told  of 
the  Tonga  Islanders,  that  theft,  revenge,  rape,  and 
murder  are  under  many  circumstances  not  held  to  be 
crimes,^  this  does  not  so  much  prove  that  conscience 
sometimes  points  wrong,  as  that  sometimes  it  does  not 
point  at  all,  or  rather  that  to  this  extent  conscience 
does  not  exist. 

Conscience  is  certainly  a  growth,  and  there  must 
have  been  a  time  when  there  was  no  sense  of  right 
or  wrong  at  all ;  but  because  a  faculty  says  nothing 
when  it  does  not  exist,  is  surely  no  proof  or  even 
suggestion  of  its  untrustworthiness  when  it  arises. 
Because  a  man  born  blind  has  no  sense  of  colors,  is  no 
reason  for  doubting  that  he  may  distinguish  them 
when  he  once  gains  his  eyesight.     And  as  travellers 

^  Spencer,  Social  Statics,  Introduction,  lemma  i.  §  2. 
2  Lubbock,  Origin  of  Civilization,  p.  259.     From  this  writer 
most  of  the  following  instances  of  savage  morals  are  taken. 


86  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

tell  us  of  savage  tribes  without  religion,  so  they  tell 
us  of  those  without  conscience.  The  Tasmanians  are 
entirely  without  any  moral  views  or  impressions. 
The  Australians  have  no  sense  of  what  is  just  or  equi- 
table in  the  abstract,  —  their  only  test  of  propriety 
in  many  cases  being  whether  they  are  numerically  or 
physically  strong  enough  to  brave  the  vengeance  of 
those  whom  they  may  provoke  or  injure.  Conscience, 
says  Burton,  does  not  exist  in  eastern  Africa,  and 
repentance  only  expresses  regret  for  missed  opportu- 
nities of  mortal  crime.  The  Tongans  have  no  words 
expressive  of  such  ideas  as  virtue,  justice,  humanity ; 
nor,  on  the  contrary,  of  such  ideas  as  vice,  injustice, 
cruelty.  Lubbock  says  he  does  not  remember  a  single 
instance  in  which  a  savage  is  recorded  to  have  shown 
any  symptoms  of  remorse.  In  the  absence  of  moral 
feeling,  savages  simply  follow  their  instincts,  or  con- 
sult their  own  interest  or  advantage.  When  Mr.  Ellis, 
a  missionary,  tells  us  that  during  the  whole  period  of 
his  residence  in  the  Tahiti  Islands  he  does  not  recol- 
lect having  found  a  female  attaining  to  motherhood 
during  the  prevalence  of  idolatry,  who  had  not  im- 
brued her  hands  in  the  blood  of  her  offspring,  it  would 
be  foolish  to  imagine  that  any  moral  approval  accom- 
panied these  acts  ;  and  the  motive  with  which  the 
murders  were  committed  becomes  plain  when  we  learn 
that  girls  were  more  often  killed  than  boys,  because 
they  were  of  less  use  in  fishing  and  in  war.  So  when 
the  ancient  Spartans  encouraged  their  young  warri- 
ors to  waylay  and  assassinate  helots  for  practice,  this 
is  not  so  much  evidence  of  a  perverted  conscience  as 
it  is  of  the  absence  of  all  conscience  in  their  feelings 
toward  their  slaves,  who  were  looked  upon  as  having 


IS  ANYTHING  ABSOLUTE  ABOUT  MORALITY?    87 

no  more  rights  than  animals.  When  the  Sioux  Indians 
in  their  dances  and  at  their  feasts  recite  their  deeds 
of  theft,  pillage,  and  slaughter  as  precious  things,  and 
it  becomes  the  highest  ambition  of  a  young  brave  to 
secure  the  feather  (which  is  the  sign  of  having  mur- 
dered some  one),  and  after  having  secured  the  first 
to  add  as  many  more  as  possible  to  his  cap,  the  feel- 
ing seems  to  be  simply  that  of  admiration  for  strength 
and  valor,  —  and  strength  and  valor  are  admirable 
things  as  contrasted  with  weakness  and  cowardice, 
and  this  seems  to  have  been  the  only  contrast  their 
savage  minds  were  capable  of  making.  We  do  not 
admire  such  strength  and  valor  now,  only  because 
we  bear  in  mind  still  higher  virtues,  —  respect  for 
human  life,  the  sense  of  its  sacredness,  —  and  believe 
that  they  give  the  superior  rule  of  action.  I  doubt 
if  anything  was  ever  admired  by  a  savage  that  was 
not,  in  just  the  aspect  that  excited  his  admiration, 
admirable.  I  doubt  if  a  savage  ever  admired  pillage 
as  such :  he  admired  the  strength  and  the  daring  that 
were  implied  in  it.  I  doubt  if  he  ever  admired  theft 
as  such :  he  admired  the  cleverness  of  it.  Lubbock 
says  that  he  cannot  believe  that  theft  and  murder 
have  ever  been  virtues  in  themselves,  though  in  the 
absence  of  moral  feelings  they  were  no  doubt  means 
of  distinction,  and  were  regarded  with  no  reprobation. 
In  a  similar  way  it  is  possible  to  regard  the  piracy 
which  is  said  to  have  been  "  the  exercise,  the  trade, 
the  glory,  and  the  virtue  of  the  Scandinavian  youth.'' 
The  earliest  form  of  virtue  ivas  strength  or  valor. 
We  may  in  this  way  even  explain  the  reversal  of 
moral  distinctions  among  those  savage  tribes  who  re- 
garded theft  as  a  virtue,  and  who  punished  the  thief 


88  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

only  when  he  allowed  himself  to  be  detected.  From 
the  savage  standpoint,  the  contrast  was  simply  be- 
tween cleverness  and  bungling  stupidity  ;  and  leav- 
ing other  considerations  aside  (or  rather  being  un- 
conscious of  them,  as  these  savage  tribes  may  have 
been),  there  can  be  no  question  which  of  the  two  is 
the  higher.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  craft  of 
Ulysses,  which  was  so  highly  admired  in  the  early 
days  of  Greece  ;  it'  there  was  faint  consciousness  of 
higher  virtues,  and  the  chief  contrast  familiar  to 
men's  minds  was  between  craft  and  the  lack  of  it, 
dexterity  in  compassing  one's  ends  and  inability  to 
do  so,  I  do  not  see  how  we  can  refuse  to  allow  that 
Ulysses'  craft  was  really  admirable. 

The  absoluteness  of  morality  does  not  mean  that 
man  has  always  had  a  conscience,  or  that  he  has  al- 
ways approved  the  highest  things ;  if  it  did,  there 
would  be  nothing  absolute  about  morality.  Man  has 
grown  into  his  knowledge  of  right  and  wrong ;  there 
must  have  been  a  time  when  he  had  no  such  knowl- 
edge,—  just  as  he  has  grown  into  a  knowledge  of  the 
world  about  him,  and  there  was  a  time  when  he  knew 
nothing  but  what  his  imperfectly  trained  senses  imme- 
diately gave  him.  No  truth  of  science  is  invalidated 
because  it  was  not  always  known,  or  because  when 
people  first  sought  for  truth  they  only  imperfectly 
grasped  it;  it  is  enough  that  they  found  it  in  some 
measure  when  they  sought  for  it,  that  the  understand- 
ing is  not  hopelessly  involved  in  illusion.  So  it  is 
enough  that  when  men  have  sought  the  right,  they 
have  in  some  measure  found  it;  and  as  for  those 
opinions  and  customs  that  were  formed  irrespective 
of  such  an  aim,  I  do  not  see  that  the  defender  of  abso- 


IS  ANYTHING  ABSOLUTE  ABOUT  MORALITY?     89 

lute  morality  need  be  anywise  concerned  about  them. 
I  have  only  mentioned  these  instances  from  what 
Professor  Jowett  has  so  happily  called  the  **  ages  be- 
fore morality,"  or  from  savage  life  to-day,  to  bring  out 
what  I  do  not  mean  by  the  absoluteness  of  morality ; 
that  is,  to  clear  up  the  confusion  and  misunderstand- 
ing that  lie  at  the  threshold  of  our  subject. 

Have  men,  with  the  supreme  thought  to  do  what 
was  right,  ever  approved  what  was  wrong? — that  is 
the  only  question  of  significance  to  the  defender  of 
absolute  morality.  Opinions  that  have  grown  up  by 
chance,  or  are  simply  due  to  passion  or  self-interest, 
or  even  the  interest  of  the  family  or  tribe  with  which 
any  individual's  interest  may  be  inevitably  bound  up, 
—  these  are  not  morality,  and  are  of  no  concern  to  the 
moral  teacher.  Morality  is  what  we  do  under  the 
pressure  of  the  thought  of  what  we  ought  to  do  ;  and 
I  doubt  if  there  was  ever  an  instance  of  a  person's 
rising  into  this  higher  zone  of  his  being  who  did  not, 
in  some  measure,  do  what  was  right. 

The  cases  of  most  difficulty  are  those  in  connec- 
tion with  religion.  Eeligion  seems  to  make  sacred  all 
that  it  commands.  The  follower  of  any  religion  is 
apt  to  take  as  his  supreme  law  whatever  that  religion 
enjoins  upon  him.  Now,  there  certainly  have  been 
instances  where  religions  have  commanded  their  fol- 
lowers to  do  what  was  wrong,  and  the  followers  have 
obeyed,  with  a  feeling  that  they  were  doing  (in  this 
sense)  their  duty.  I  have  recounted  so  many  barbar- 
ous things  that  it  is  no  pleasant  task  to  add  to  their 
number,  but  a  few  instances  must  be  given.  There 
is  a  sect  in  India  called  Thugs,  who  regard  assassina- 
tion as  a  religious  act.     The  Israelitish  tribes,  under 


90  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

the  leadership  of  their  battle-god  Jahveh,  enacted 
numberless  massacres  among  the  tribes  of  Canaan ; 
and  sometimes  a  general  like  Moses,  acting  under  a 
commission  from  this  god,  would  ask  reproachfully, 
after  a  barbarous  victory,  "  Have  ye  .saved  the  women 
alive  ?"  and  then  command  all  the  wives  and  mothers 
to  be  killed,  and  the  remaining  women  to  be  divided 
among  the  warriors.^  Jesus  knew  that  the  time  would 
come  when  those  who  should  kill  his  disciples  would 
think  they  were  doing  God  service ;  ^  and  Paul,  be- 
fore his  conversion,  verily  thought  that  he  ought 
to  do  many  things  contrary  to  the  name  of  Jesus  of 
Nazareth.^  What  need  to  rehearse  the  wrongs  and 
cruelties  practised  by  the  Christian  Church  itself  on 
heretics  and  unbelievers,  all  with  the  thought  of  doing 
God  service  ?  The  Prankish  King  Clovis,  after  his 
conversion,  incited  Sigibert's  son  to  kill  his  father, 
then  had  the  son  killed,  and  himself  killed  many 
other  kings,  even  some  among  his  nearest  relatives  ; 
and  the  Bishop  Gregory  writes  of  him  :  "  Every  day 
God  caused  his  enemies  to  fall  into  his  hands  and 
augmented  his  kingdom,  because  he  walked  with  an 
upright  heart  before  God,  and  did  the  things  that 
were  pleasing  in  his  sight."*  What  need  to  refer  to 
the  massacre  of  the  Albigenses,  to  the  Inquisition  ? 
There  is  hardly  a  crime  or  an  act  of  treachery  that 
has  not  been  made  sacred  by  the  Church ;  popes  have 
repeatedly  said  that  there  is  no  obligation  to  keep 
faith  with  an  infidel. 

The  question,  however,  arises  in  all   these   cases, 

1  Numbers,  xxxi.  15-18.  2  John,  xvi.  2. 

8  Acts,  xxvi.  9. 

4  Guizot's  History  of  Civilization,  i.  41,  42. 


IS  ANYTHING  ABSOLUTE  ABOUT  MORALITY?      91 

What  was  the  dominant  thought  ?  Was  it  to  do  sim- 
ply what  was  right,  irrespective  of  any  motive  of  in- 
terest or  fear  or  favor,  or  has  it  been  to  please  some 
person,  to  serve  some  private  or  class  interest  ?  Or, 
going  deeper,  we  may  ask.  What  is  the  origin  of  re- 
ligion ?  Was  religion,  at  the  start,  simply  man's 
thought  of  what  ought  to  be,  idealized  or  personi- 
fied, or  was  it  an  arrangement  by  which  he  hoped  to 
further  his  own  interest?  I  think  nothing  can  be 
clearer  to  the  student  of  the  early  history  of  man 
than  that  religion  and  morality  were  altogether  dis- 
tinct in  their  origin  ;  and  that  religion  was  simply  a 
contrivance  to  ward  off  danger  or  win  advantage  for 
one's  self  or  for  one's  tribe.  '^  It  is  very  clear,"  says 
Lubbock,  "  that  religion,  except  in  advanced  races,  has 
no  moral  aspect  or  influence."  The  deities  are  often 
evil  rather  than  good  beings ;  religion  is  a  means  of 
propitiating  them  and  getting  their  favor,  and  what- 
ever was  necessary  to  that  end  believers  inclined  to 
do.  The  Thugs  probably  believed  that  their  deity 
could  be  satisfied  only  with  the  murder  of  those  who 
did  not  worship  him.  The  same  feelings,  doubtless, 
inspired  the  tribes  of  Israel  in  their  wars  upon  the 
Canaanites,  in  conjunction  with  their  natural  hostility 
to  those  in  possession  of  the  land  which  they  coveted. 
I  doubt  if  Moses,  or  one  of  the  heroes  of  Israelitish 
legend,  ever  seriously  asked  himself.  What  is  right  ? 
How  ought  I,  regardless  of  any  interests  of  my  own, 
to  treat  my  fellow  beings  ?  I  doubt  if  they  ever  had 
a  thought  of  justice  outside  of  tribal  limits,  or  ever 
sinned  against  that  thought.  In  all  likelihood  they 
simply  had  in  mind  the  interests  of  their  own  people, 
and  by  hook  or  crook,  by  all  natural  and  all  supernat- 


92  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

ural  means,  they  were  ready  to  further  those  inter- 
ests. When  Paul  thought  he  ought  to  do  many  things 
contrary  to  the  name  of  Jesus,  his  thought  was  of 
loyalty  to  that  old  tribal  god,  who  had,  it  is  true,  been 
enlarged  and  moralized  to  a  certain  extent  under  the 
influence  of  the  teaching  of  the  prophets,  but  plain- 
ly not  moralized  completely,  since  he  sanctioned  the 
persecution  of  the  followers  of  a  new  form  of  faith. 
It  is  barely  possible  that  the  conversion  of  Paul  was 
ultimately  due  to  a  rising  of  his  sense  of  right  in 
opposition  to  mere  loyalty  to  a  tribal  religion.  Can 
you  once  imagine  King  Clovis,  or  the  instigators  of 
the  Inquisition,  sitting  down  to  ask  themselves  in  a 
calm  and  serious  spirit,  What  ought  we  to  do  ?  Do  we 
not  know  that  in  the  one  case  it  was  simply  passion 
for  power,  and  in  the  other  case  passion  for  the  Church 
and  the  God  of  the  Church  that  dictated  the  action  ? 
If  they  did  not  persecute,  they  knew  that  they  should 
offend  their  God  ;  and  if  they  offended  their  God  there 
would  be,  forsooth,  no  safety  for  themselves  here  or 
hereafter.  If  ever  the  slumbering  conscience  of  one 
of  those  Catholic  Inquisitors  arose,  it  was  probably 
shown  not  in  any  justification  he  made  of  his  conduct, 
but  in  the  simple  fact  of  his  attempting  to  justify  it. 
Many  a  time  the  only  way  a  man's  conscience  shows 
itself  is  not  in  anything  that  he  does,  but  in  a  lurking 
suspicion  that  he  has  done  wrong,  and  in  some  kind 
of  an  attempt  to  make  it  appear  that  he  did  right. 
And  sometimes,  perhaps,  a  man's  conscience  never  does 
arise ;  it  is  swallowed  up  in  some  enormous  religious 
or  patriotic  zeal.  For  a  man's  religion  is  often  like 
his  patriotism :  as  the  patriotic  fanatic  says  "My  coun- 
try, right  or  wrong,"  so  the  religious  fanatic,  "My 


IS  ANYTHING  ABSOLUTE  ABOUT  MORALITY?      93 

religion,  right  or  wrong."  Both  are  at  an  equal  dis- 
tance from  that  clear,  calm,  undisturbed,  and  undis- 
tuibal»le  condition  of  the  mind,  in  which  one  only 
asks  what  is  right  and  what  is  wrong.  How  different 
an  ethical  religion  would  be  from  religion  as  it  is  or- 
dinarily understood  !  Eeligion  to  most  persons  still 
means  getting  the  favor  of  God.  Some  religions,  it 
is  true,  happen  to  have  been  more  or  less  affected  by 
morality,  and  so  they  give  us  a  God  worthy  of  rev- 
erence. But  an  ethical  religion  would  grow  out  of 
a  totally  different  motive  ;  the  first  thought  in  the 
breast  of  every  follower  of  it  would  be.  What  ought 
I  to  do  in  accordance  with  the  widest  and  most  per- 
fect right  ?  And  its  God,  if  the  nameless  Power  that 
*' infects  the  w^orld"  should  ever  again  receive  that 
particular  designation,  would  simply  be  the  ultimate 
supreme  Reality,  in  virtue  of  which  man  and  all  finite 
things  exist. 

Hence  I  doubt  if  any  of  these  instances  from  the 
history  of  religion  are  really  contrary  to  the  opinion 
I  have  advanced,  that  when  a  man  sincerely  asks. 
What  ought  I  to  do,  irrespective  of  the  fear  or  favor 
of  God  or  man  ?  his  answer  is  in  some  measure  right. 
Of  course,  if  there  has  been  no  idea  of  a  right,  beyond 
the  tribe  or  the  church  or  the  God,  the  wrong-doers 
we  have  mentioned  were  not  really  responsible  for  the 
wrong  they  did ;  nay,  their  duty  was  only  to  act  ac- 
cording to  the  highest  standard  of  right  they  knew. 
No  man  is  bound  to  act  against  his  conscience,  even 
if  his  conscience  commands  a  murder;  none  the  less 
should  we  say  that  his  conscience  in  such,  a  case  was 
not  a  true  conscience,  that  it  did  not  conform  to  that 
perfect  standard  of  right  in  harmony  with  which  all 


94  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

consciences  should  be.  But  in  very  truth  it  is  doubt- 
ful whether  any  of  the  acts  we  have  considered  were 
done  under  stress  of  conscience ;  they  were  rather  done 
under  the  blind  promptings  of  religious  zeal,  —  and 
religious  zeal  and  conscience  may  be,  as  their  whole 
history  shows,  entirely  different  things. 

Yet  even  if  this  view  could  not  be  maintained,  if 
there  were  instances  in  which  not  merely  religious 
feeling  but  the  moral  sense  itself  had  unmistakably 
gone  wrong  in  the  past,  this  would  not  necessarily 
affect  our  confidence  in  the  affirmations  of  the  moral 
sense  now.  No  part  of  our  nature  seems  to  be  guaran- 
teed infallibility ;  our  senses  and  our  understanding 
sometimes  deceive  us,  yet  we  have  a  perfect  confidence 
that  in  their  normal  exercise  they  are  trustworthy. 
We  are  not  any  the  less  certain  now  that  the  world  is 
round  because  men  formerly  supposed  it  was  flat,  even 
if  they  had  been  willing  to  go  to  the  stake  for  such  a 
conviction.  I  suppose  we  may  say  we  are  absolutely 
certain  that  the  world  is  round ;  and  even  if  we  were 
not  absolutely  certain,  the  fact  itself  would  certainly 
be  one  way  or  the  other,  — ,  it  could  not  be  both.  So, 
may  we  not  be  absolutely  sure  of  certain  moral  prin- 
ciples, while  admitting  fully  that  there  has  been  de- 
velopment in  the  knowledge  of  these  principles,  and 
occasionally  a  falling  away  from  the  knowledge  of 
them  even  after  it  has  been  gained  ? 

The  question  of  an  absolute  morality  is,  after  all,  not 
whether  man  changes,  but  whether  principles  change. 
The  question  is.  Are  there  not  unalterable  principles 
for  human  conduct,  whether  human  conduct  conforms 
to  them,  and  whether  men  have  any  adequate  knowl- 
edge of  them,  or  not  ?     Take  any  principle  that  we 


IS  ANYTHING  ABSOLUTE  ABOUT  MORALITY?      95 

are  most  sure  of  to-day,  —  of  equality  before  the  law, 
for  example,  or  of  the  right  of  each  one  to  own  his  own 
person,  —  and  are  we  not  sure  that  any  departure  from 
it  would  be  a  departure  from  the  true  ideal  for  human 
society  ;  that  if  the  interests  of  order  or  civilization 
should  seem  to  demand  the  departure,  such  an  order 
or  type  of  civilization  would  be  false  and  vicious,  and 
would  lead  sooner  or  later  to  its  own  overthrow  ?  Even 
if  our  selfish  interests  should  come  to  blind  our  own 
eyes,  as  was  often  the  case  with  the  Southern  slave- 
holders, and  we  defend  and  treat  as  sacred  the  wrongs 
we  have  occasioned,  would  they  any  the  less  be  wrongs 
though  we  should  cease  to  regard  them  as  such,  and 
though  no  living  man  pronounced  as  to  their  real  char- 
acter ?  I  think  we  feel,  in  contemplating  such  an  ex- 
ample, that  our  moral  sense  does  not  make  right  and 
wrong  any  more  than  our  interests  or  our  desires,  but 
simply  finds  them,  — just  as  we  open  our  eyes  upon  the 
wondrous  order  of  the  world  about  us,  and  know  that 
not  it,  but  we,  are  new  comers  on  the  scene.  It  is  as* 
with  the  conditions  of  health :  does  any  one  think  that 
he  can  change  these  at  will,  or  that  his  thought  of 
them  can  make  them  one  particle  different  from  what 
they  would  be  altogether  apart  from  his  thought  ? 
The  conditions  of  the  universal  good  or  welfare  are 
just  as  fixed  and  unalterable,  so  far  as  our  will  or  our 
thought  are  concerned ;  and  the  universal  good  or 
welfare  is  the  highest  aim  of  morality,  —  by  every  act 
we  do  or  leave  undone  we  help  or  hinder  its  attain- 
ment, and  our  moral  task  is,  at  each  time  and  in  every 
act,  to  hinder  the  least  and  help  the  most.  We  do  not 
always  know  what  to  do  :  morality  is  often  a  problem 
to  us ;  but  the  problem  is,  we  feel,  not  to  do  as  we  like, 


96  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

trusting  that  it  will  turn  out  for  the  best,  but  to  learn 
the  right  thing  to  do,  —  and  only  that,  we  feel,  will  or 
can  turn  out  for  the  best.  We  do  not  make  an  act 
one  particle  better  by  thinking  it  is  good  if  it  is  not 
really  good,  nor  one  particle  less  harmful  by  speciously 
justifying  or  excusing  it.  Acts  are  good  or  bad  just 
in  so  far  as  they  correspond  with  the  requirements 
of  the  nature  of  things,  in  so  far  as  they  advance  or 
retard  the  ends  which  Nature  herself  has  at  heart. 
There  is  a  way  of  living  now  for  you  and  me,  —  per- 
haps in  a  measure  different  for  each  according  to 
our  circumstances  and  capacities,  —  that  would  tend 
to  bring  nearer  the  time  when  the  universal  welfare 
would  be  secured,  when  the  ends  of  existence  would 
be  realized  in  every  child  of  man.  I  believe  that 
way  is  fixed,  —  fixed  perhaps  in  one  way  for  you  and 
in  another  for  me,  but  equally  fixed  for  both;  and 
we  have,  in  the  literal  sense  of  the  word,  to  find  out 
that  way,  as  though  it  were  something  fixed  by  other 
hands  than  our  own,  with  which  we  have  to  bring 
our  thoughts  and  lives  into  harmony.  This  makes 
the  ideal  for  each  one  of  us,  and  the  supreme  busi- 
ness of  our  life  is  to  discover  it  and  faithfully  follow 
it.  It  is  no  alien  thing.  It  aims  at  a  good  beyond 
ourselves,  namely,  the  good  of  all ;  but  it  is  for  our- 
selves, —  our  true  good  is  in  the  good  of  all.  It  ap- 
peals to  us  with  no  show  of  force  or  power,  but  only 
by  its  own  sweet  reasonableness ;  for  it  is  indeed 
our  own  proper  nature,  and  we  are  astray,  wander- 
ers from  our  true  selves,  till  we  have  found  it  and 
become  obedient  to  it.  Does  it  hinder  the  freedom  of 
the  tree,  that  it  grows  according  to  its  own  appointed 
form  ?     Does  it  hinder  the  freedom  of  the  bursting 


IS  ANYTHING  ABSOLUTE  ABOUT  MORALITY?   97 

leaves  of  the  spring-time,  that  they  silently  follow 
an  inward  necessity  of  comeliness  and  beauty  ?  No, 
their  will  is  one  with  the  law  of  their  being.  Alas  ! 
man's  is  not ;  he  does  not  know  his  true  good,  and 
when  he  does,  he  often  prefers  an  inferior  good.  Yet 
man  may  have  a  glory  that  the  leaves  and  the  trees 
and  all  things  in  Nature  cannot  have  :  he  may  give 
himself  the  law  that  he  shall  follow  ;  he  may,  by  his 
own  choice,  adopt  it  into,  make  it  sovereign  in,  his  life. 
Man  can  be  the  voluntary  achiever  of  the  purposes  of 
Nature,  —  and  that  the  leaf  on  the  tree  is  not ;  he  can 
be  at  once  free  and  the  servant  of  a  universal  plan, 
while  all  things  in  Nature  seem  to  be  servants  with- 
out freedom.  Tennyson  addresses  what  he  conceives 
to  be  an  ideal  of  perfect  excellence,  when  he  says,  — 

"  Our  wills  are  ours,  we  know  not  how ; 
Our  wills  are  ours,  to  make  them  Thine." 

And  I  should  say  that  man's  glory  is  that  he  has  a 
will  of  his  own,  and  yet  can  make  that  will  conform 
with  the  requirements  of  a  perfect  law.  That  law 
stretches  beyond  all  that  is  written  down  in  human 
statutes ;  it  marks  out  for  us  a  course  of  action,  a 
mode  of  life,  and  an  order  of  society  that  would  re- 
sult in  the  accomplishment  of  a  perfect  good.  I  but 
repeat  in  substance  the  language  of  a  distinguished 
political  economist,  M.  de  Laveleye,  —  who  does  not 
forget,  as  so  many  do,  the  ideal  aims  of  his  science,  — 
when  I  say  that  at  every  moment  of  history  and  in 
every  society,  conformably  to  the  nature  of  mankind, 
there  is  a  social  and  political  organization  which  an- 
swers best  to  the  rational  requirements  of  man,  and  is 
most  favorable  to  his  development.     This  order  con- 

7 


98  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

stitutes  the  empire  of  right.  Science  is  called  in  to 
discover  it,  and  legislation  to  sanction  it.  Every  law 
which  is  conformable  to  this  order  is  good  and  just; 
every  law  which  is  opposed  to  it  is  bad  and  iniquitous. 
This  order  is  by  no  means  always  the  existing  one  ; 
else  why  should  we  desire  change  in  the  latter  ?  But  it 
is  the  order  which  ought  to  exist  for  the  greatest  good 
of  the  human  race.^  An  absolute  morality  is  only  the 
law  of  a  social  and  political  order  in  which  the  great- 
est good  of  the  human  race  would  be  secured ;  and 
they,  it  seems  to  me,  would  reach  the  loftiest  moral 
height  who,  without  waiting  for  legislation  to  sanction 
it  or  for  other  human  beings  to  set  them  the  example, 
should,  so  far  as  possible,  voluntarily  make  it  the  rule 
of  their  lives  now. 

But  if  there  are  moral  principles  which  do  not  de- 
pend on  our  thought  for  their  rightness,  which  in  ac- 
cordance with  our  varying  conditions  and  capacities 
give  to  each  one  of  us  the  true  ideal  of  life,  and  which 
by  no  means  conflict  with  our  freedom,  since  only  by 
our  freedom  can  they  become  realized  in  us,  —  if  such 
principles  exist,  what  are  they  ?  I  believe  they  may 
be  stated  as  Justice  and  Love.  It  is  sometimes  said 
that  circumstances  alter  duties.  Edmund  Burke  said 
that  the  situation  of  a  man  was  the  preceptor  of  his 
duty.  But  are  there  any  circumstances  which  would 
justify  a  man  in  practising  injustice  ?  Is  there  any 
situation  in  which  it  is  permitted  to  us  to  hate  ?  I 
believe  not.  I  believe  these  laws  are  of  unconditional, 
universal  validity.  All  particular  duties  change  ;  they 
are  but  the  application  of  these  general  laws  to  par- 
ticular, varying  circumstances.  Justice  may  require 
1  Primitive  Property,  pp.  346,  353. 


IS  ANYTHING  ABSOLUTE  ABOUT  MORALITY"?   99 

US  to  reward  one  man  and  to  punish  another :  to  treat 
them  equally  might  even  be  injustice.  Justice  may 
lead  us  to  make  war,  or  to  maintain  peace ;  but  to 
make  war  recklessly,  or  to  maintain  peace  at  any 
cost,  would  be  contrary  to  justice.  Justice  may  lead 
us  to  stay  by  our  families  and  support  them,  or  to 
leave  them  and  enlist  for  the  public  defence  ;  but  if 
we  should  leave  our  families  for  selfish  rather  than 
unselfish  reasons,  or  to  gratify  passion  and  lust,  the 
same  principle  that  before  justified  us  would  now  ab- 
solutely condemn  us.  The  admission  that  varying  cir- 
cumstances change  the  character  of  our  obligations  is 
not  in  the  slightest  degree  inconsistent  with  the  recog- 
nition that  there  is  an  absolute  obligation  for  each 
particular  set  of  circumstances.  The  admission  that 
duty  may  change  with  circumstances  is,  of  course,  lia- 
ble to  perversion,  and  the  wicked  man  may  take  it  to 
mean  that  he  may  do  whatever  it  pleases  him  to  do ; 
but  the  pure-minded  man  knows  that  duty  itself  still 
remains,  and  has  only  changed  its  form.  Equally  may 
love  lead  us  to  varying  and  opposite  actions.  Out  of 
love  we  may  give  alms  to  a  poor  man,  or  withhold 
them,  —  in  either  case  acting  not  according  to  our 
caprice,  but  for  the  best  good  of  the  man  himself. 
Love  may  lead  us  to  speak  the  truth,  or  to  withhold 
it ;  to  keep  a  promise,  or  to  break  one ;  to  strive  to 
preserve  our  health,  or  freely  to  sacrifice  it.  There 
is  nothing  that  is  absolute  —  that  is,  fixed  and  unva- 
rying—  about  these  particular  maxims.  The  only  ab- 
solute rule  is  that  of  love  itself ;  one  may  always  act 
under  its  inspiration.  You  may  rebuke  your  child 
in  love  ;  a  man  may  thwart  his  friends  in  love.  It  is 
one  of  the  touches  of  humanity,  even  in  the  Homeric 


100  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

poems,  that  now  and  then  two  brave  foes  exchange 
presents  at  the  conchision  of  a  combat  to  prove  that 
not  out  of  hate  but  for  glory  they  have  fought.^  In- 
deed, if  there  is  any  act  that  can  be  done  only  in  pure 
hatred,  it  stands  self-condemned.  We  may  hate  wick- 
edness, but  must  always  remember  that  a  wicked  man 
is  more  than  his  wickedness.  We  may  not  hate  even  a 
mortal  enemy  ;  though  we  take  his  life  in  self-defence, 
we  are  not  allowed  to  take  pleasure  in  doing  so. 

Because,  then,  there  is  no  one  particular  act  that  is 
always  right,  or  no  one  particular  maxim  —  like  '^  Pre- 
serve your  health,"  or  "  Keep  your  promises  ''  —  which 
must  always  be  obeyed,  it  does  not  follow  that  there 
is  nothing  absolute  whatever  about  morality.  The 
absoluteness  of  morality  is  in  its  supreme  principles  ; 
they  need  never  be  transgressed,  they  dare  never  be 
disobeyed.  If  I  do  not  follow  any  one  particular 
maxim  of  duty,  it  must  never  be  because  I  substitute 
some  interest  or  caprice  of  my  own,  but  because  I 
seek  to  obey  some  broader  maxim,  some  higher,  more 
perfect  expression  of  the  principle  itself.  And  if  an 
air  of  uncertainty  seems  thus  to  be  left  about  specific 
duties,  let  me  suggest  a  rule  that,  I  think,  will  give 
us  practical  guidance  in  a  special  emergency  ;  when 
we  find  ourselves  doubting  about  any  particular  duty, 
let  us  ask  ourselves  searchingly  the  question,  "Am 
I  doubting  because  I  secretly  desire  to  do  differently, 
or  because  a  really  higher  duty  seems  to  command 
me  ?  " 

It  is  a  sign  of  the  wonderful  range  of  the  human 
mind,  that  it  is  able,  so  to  speak,  to  transcend  itself, 
and  to  discover  laws  that  would  be  just  as  true  had 
1  Iliad,  vii.  800  fe. 


IS  ANYTHING  ABSOLUTE  ABOUT  MORALITY?    101 

they  not  been  discovered,  — la^svs'^tliat^are  d.dji^  than 
the  mind,  and  will  go  on,  in  their  Jjncea?ing  opera- 
tion, after  the  mind  has,  to.SiiLapp^^ar3,n(;b,  i-.t^-sed  ho 
be.  Such  are  all  the  laws  of  Nature.  It  is  certain- 
ly good  at  times  to  escape  out  of  ourselves,  —  these 
lieeting,  so  quickly  vanishing  selves,  —  and  feel  the 
pulses  and  recognize  the  laws  of  this  unceasing  and 
eternal  movement  in  the  world  around  us.  Matthew 
Arnold  suggests  as  a  staying,  consoling  thought  for 
the  dying  man,  that,  though  he  is  to  perish,  the  world 
does  not  perish  with  him,  but  eternally  goes  on.^  I 
would,  if  I  might,  suggest  the  thought  of  other  laws 
and  of  another  order  of  things  than  this  physical 
one  with  which  we  are  surrounded.  I  would  suggest 
the  thought  of  deathless  principles  to  the  dying  man. 
I  would  have  him  think  that  justice  does  not  die  be- 
cause he  dies  ;  that  love  does  not  cease  to  urge  its 
claims  because  his  own  heart's  love  seems  about  to 
cease.  I  would  have  him  think  that  though  justice 
and  love  had  failed  in  all  the  past  to  get  an  entrance 
into  human  hearts,  they  ought  to  have  had  an  en- 
trance, for  they  belong  there,  —  their  meaning  was 
there,  —  and  that  they  are  the  unalterable  pattern 
after  which,  the  life  of  men  must  be  shaped  in  the 
future.  These  laws,  also,  are  stable  ;  they  seem  to 
give  something  of  their  own  firmness  to  those  who 
contemplate  them ;  they  are  witness  that  within,  as 
well  as  without,  man  is  connected  with  an  eternal 
order  of  things. 

1  Poems,  — "A  Wish." 


VI. 

DARWINISM  IN  ETHICS. 

IT  is  the  high  and  noble  thing  to  do  what  is  good 
and  right  of  our  own  accord.  We  do  not  reach 
the  heights  of  morality  till  goodness  is  the  free  choice 
of  the  soul.  I  believe  that  man,  with  his  wonderful 
gift  of  reason,  can  discern  a  highest  good,  and  then, 
unconstrained  by  all  that  is  without  him,  can  choose 
it.  It  constitutes  the  incomparable  dignity  of  man 
that  he  need  not  be  like  a  cloud  driven  before  the 
winds,  but  can,  as  George  Eliot  says,  "elect  his  deeds, 
and  be  the  liege,  not  of  his  birth,  but  of  that  good 
alone  he  has  discerned  and  chosen."^ 

Nevertheless,  we  have  a  curious  and  profound  in- 
terest in  the  question  as  to  the  tendency  of  things 
apart  from  our  own  will.  We  know  that  we  are  not 
masters  of  our  own  life ;  there  are  conditions  outside 
of  us  to  which  we  have  to  conform.  To  take  one 
of  the  simplest  illustrations,  —  we  know  that  if  on 
a  cold  winter  day  we  are  not  sufficiently  protected 
against  the  weather,  we  shall  perish.  We  must  adjust 
ourselves  to  our  environment,  to  use  a  phrase  that  has 
come  into  vogue ;  we  are  compelled  to,  if  we  wish  to 
live.  The  tendency  of  things  is  thus  to  encourage 
and  develop  prudence.  Nature  may  be  said  to  be  on 
1  Spanish  Gypsy,  book  iii. 


DARWINISM  IN  ETHICS.  103 

the  side  of  those  who  are  prudent,  since  those  who 
are  not  she  does  not  permit  to  live. 

The  question  is,  Does  Nature  sustain  any  such  re- 
lation to  morality,  —  does  the  force  of  things  outside 
of  us  incline  the  race  to  be  moral  ?  Or  is  it,  per- 
chance, favorable  to  immorality;  or  is  it  indifferent,  so 
that  good  and  bad  men  thrive  equally  well  ?  In  other 
words,  is  morality  a  private  matter,  about  which  a  per- 
son need  have  no  more  serious  concern  than  about 
any  other  question  of  individual  inclination  and  taste ; 
or  is  it  something  having,  whether  we  will  or  no,  is- 
sues of  life  and  death  ?  We  naturally  incline  to  take 
the  former  view.  When  we  transgress  any  of  the 
laws  of  morality,  we  like  to  say  to  ourselves  that  it 
is  our  own  affair;  that  nothing  outside  of  us  takes 
cognizance  of  it,  nor  will  any  grave  result  follow. 

It  is  at  this  point  that  the  views  of  Darwin  have  a 
wonderful  interest.  Darwin  does  not  write  as  an  eth- 
ical philosopher,  but  as  a  naturalist.  In  his  famous 
chapters  in  the  "  Descent  of  Man  "  ^  his  object  is,  not 
to  give  us  a  theory  of  ethics,  but  to  show  the  part 
which  morality  has  played  in  the  development  of  the 
race.  Any  one  who  thinks  that  morality  is  a  pri- 
vate matter,  and  that  physical  strength  and  mental  ca- 
pacity are  the  only  things  that  Nature  takes  account 
of,  should  read  those  chapters.  Everywhere,  according 
to  Darwin,  among  men  as  truly  as  among  the  lower 
orders  of  being,  there  is  a  struggle  to  live  ;  and  those 
who  are  best  fitted  to  the  conditions  of  life  succeed 
and  leave  offspring  behind  them,  and  those  who  are 
less  fitted  tend  to  extinction.  Any  casual  variation, 
by  which  an  individual  has  an  advantage  over  others, 
^  Part  I.  chap.  iii.  iv.  and  v. 


104  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

is  seized  upon,  intensified  by  transmission,  and  perhaps 
in  time  gives  rise  to  a  well-marked  species. 

Physically  a  man  is  no  match  for  a  bear  or  a  buf- 
falo ;  in  an  actual  tussle  he  would  surely  be  worsted. 
[None  the  less  is  he  their  superior  by  virtue  of  his 
intelligence ;  he  invents  a  spear,  a  bow-and-arrow,  or 
a  gun,  and  thereby  outdoes  them.  So  as  between  men 
and  races  of  men,  —  variations  in  the  direction  of 
greater  strength  of  body  are  of  slight  importance  com- 
pared with  variations  in  the  direction  of  higher  mental 
powers  ;  in  war  itself,  it  is  not  necessarily  the  most 
numerous  nation,  or  the  one  with  the  hardiest  sol- 
diers, but  the  one  with  the  ablest  generals  and  in  pos- 
session of  the  most  ingenious  methods  of  warfare  that 
gains  the  victory.  But  Darwin  shows  further,  that 
the  possession  of  moral  qualities  is  an  advantage  in 
the  struggle  for  existence ;  that  a  race  with  strong 
moral  feelings  would,  other  things  being  equal,  win  in 
a  contest  with  another  race  destitute  of  such  feelings ; 
in  other  words,  that  Nature  is  on  the  side  of  morality 
as  truly  as  on  the  side  of  the  strongest  arm  or  the 
largest  brain.  Darwinism  is  often  interpreted  in  a 
different  way ;  it  is  often  thought  to  sanction  the 
efforts  of  the  stronger  individual  to  push  the  weaker 
to  the  wall.  Let  every  man  stand  on  his  own  feet ; 
and  those  who  cannot  stand,  let  them  fall,  it  is  said. 
To  practically  apply  the  doctrine :  if  a  man  can  pro- 
vide for  himself  an  education,  well  and  good  ;  if  he 
cannot,  let  him  go  without  it,  —  never  should  he  be 
helped.  If  a  woman  has  power  to  get  her  rights, 
very  well  if  not,  let  her  go  without  them.  If  a  per- 
son is  smart  enough  to  defraud  another,  let  him  do 
so ;  if  he  is  strong  enough  to  do  violence  to  another 


DARWINISM  IN  ETHICS.  105 

with  impunity,  very  well,  —  that  is  his  right,  as  the 
stronger.  This  is  the  creed  of  unmeasured  individu- 
alism, and  was  well  expressed  by  Kob  Roy  in  Words- 
worth's poem,  as  the  old  rule,  — 

"That  they  sliould  take  who  have  the  power, 
And  they  should  keep  who  can." 

But  it  is  very  crude  Darwinism,  —  nay,  it  is  opposed 
to  the  teachings  of  Darwin;  for  according  to  him 
our  notions  of  what  we  should  and  should  not  do  are 
derived  from  the  social  instincts,  and  the  social  in- 
stincts contradict  such  heartless  indifference  to  the 
welfare  of  others  as  the  creed  of  extreme  individual- 
ism allows.  Doubtless  such  social  anarchy  did  exist 
in  the  early  ages  of  the  world,  in  the  "  ages  before 
conscience  ; "  but  the  significant  fact  is  that  the  prim- 
itive races  without  conscience  did  not  perpetuate 
themselves  ;  that  they  had  no  strength,  no  stamina, 
no  cohesive  power  in  the  struggle  with  those  superior 
races  in  whom  the  social  instincts  were  developed ; 
that  so  far  as  they  do  survive  to-day,  they  survive  as 
savages,  and  are  on  the  border  line  between  man  and 
the  brute. 

Let  us  observe  now  in  detail  how  morality  helps  to 
build  man  up,  so  that  by  his  very  love  of  life  he  is  nat- 
urally deterred  from  those  courses  of  conduct  that  con- 
science condemns.  (1)  A  peaceful  disposition  is  one 
element  of  morality.  I  do  not  mean  the  disposition 
weakly  to  submit  to  injuries,  but  the  unwillingness  to 
inflict  injuries  ;  I  mean  the  contrary  of  a  violent  and 
quarrelsome  temper.  At  first  sight  it  may  seem  as  if 
violent  people  injure  others  rather  than  themselves, 
as  if  their  violence  gives  them  an  advantage  in  the 


106  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

struggle  to  live.  But  turn  the  matter  round,  and  ask, 
as  between  peaceable  men  and  quarrelsome  men, 
other  things  being  equal,  which  are  the  more  likely  to 
suffer  violence  in  turn,  and  themselves  come  to  an 
untimely  end  ?  I  think  there  cannot  be  a  doubt  that 
peaceful  men  are  more  likely  to  survive  and  rear  off- 
spring than  violent  men ;  that  violence  is  apt  to  be  a 
boomerang,  striking  at  last  the  perpetrator  of  it ;  that 
the  ways  of  violence,  even  in  uncivilized  societies,  are 
the  ways  of  death,  and  the  ways  of  peace  are  the  ways 
of  life.  (2)  Temperate  habits  are  another  element  of 
morality.  The  intemperate  man,  who  indulges  his 
appetite  for  intoxicating  drinks,  thinks  it  his  own 
affair,  and  that  he  will  not  greatly  suffer  ;  but  the  laws 
of  life  think  diiferently,  —  they  cut  short  his  days. 
It  is  a  statistical  fact  that  intemperate  persons  at  the 
age  of  thirty,  in  England,  are  not  likely  to  live  more 
than  thirteen  or  fourteen  years  longer,  while  the  ex- 
pectation of  life  of  the  average  country  laborer  at 
that  age  is  forty  years.  (3)  Another  element  of  mo- 
rality is  respect  for  woman,  and  the  sense  of  the 
sanctity  of  the  marriage  relation.  Does  it  make  no 
difference  if  men  or  women  lead  profligate  lives  ?  So 
profligate  persons  are  apt  to  think ;  they  are  rarely 
serious  about  it.  But  Nature  is  opposed  to  profligacy, 
for  she  will  allow  profligate  women  to  have  but  few 
if  any  children  ;  it  is  as  if  she  had  a  distaste  for  their 
breed,  —  wanted  it  stopped.  In  the  natural  course  of 
things,  profligate  men,  as  Darwin  remarks,  rarely  mar- 
ry ;  on  their  side,  too,  the  breed  of  those  with  ungov- 
erned  lusts  tends  to  extinction.  And  if,  in  another 
way,  men  or  women  sin  against  Nature's  laws,  and 
in  solitude  and  darkness  practise  the  crimes  that  the 


DARWINISM  IN  ETHICS.  107 

light  of  day  would  blush  to  look  upon,  does  the  darkness 
hide  them,  and  Nature  take  no  cognizance  ?  Witness 
the  weakness  that  comes  on,  —  the  weakness  of  body 
and  weakness  of  mind,  the  loss  of  memory,  the  child- 
ishness, yes,  the  sterility;  ^tis  as  if  Nature  would 
cover  them  with  contempt.  And  in  regard  to  the  per- 
sistent disuse  of  moral  feeling  generally,  do  we  realize 
what  one  of  our  highest  scientific  authorities,  Mauds- 
ley,^  tells  us,  that  by  it  a  man  may  succeed  in  manu- 
facturing insanity  in  his  progeny,  and  that  insane 
persons,  if  they  are  allowed  to  propagate,  become  at 
last  a  race  of  sterile  idiots  ? 

Look  at  the  matter  on  a  wider  scale.  Consider  men 
not  as  individuals,  but  as  societies.  If  we  think  that 
natural  selection  favors  simply  the  strongest  in  body 
or  mind,  consider  the  history  of  the  family,  the  most 
rudimentary  of  human  societies.  What  would  a  fam- 
ily be  without  some  measure  of  unselfishness  ?  To 
answer,  we  have  to  go  to  the  lowest  savages.  Among 
the  Andamanese  the  husband  cares  for  his  wife  until 
the  child  that  is  born  to  them  is  weaned;  then  the 
mother  has  to  look  out  for  herself  and  for  her  child,  — 
the  father  seeks  another  mate.  Is  Nature  indifferent, 
and  do  we  imagine  that  this  is  a  thriving  tribe  ?  The 
fact  is  that  according  to  a  recent  reporter  the  An- 
damanese are  gradually  dying  out;  he  saw  but  one 
woman  who  had  as  many  as  three  children ;  few 
members  of  the  tribe  live  beyond  the  age  of  forty. ^ 
And  now  suppose  the  mothers  had  as  little  unselfish- 
ness as  the  fathers ;  that  they  let  their  offspring  care 
for  themselves  as  soon  as  weaned,  —  the  tribe  would 

1  Popular  Science  Monthly,  September,  1870. 

2  Spencer's  Sociology,  i.  668. 


108  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

probably  in  a  generation  or  two  become  extinct.  It  is 
some  measure  of  unseltisli  feeling  that  allows  our  race 
to  be  perpetuated  at  all.  Yes,  Darwin  shows  that  the 
social  instincts  to  some  extent  exist  in  the  lower  ani- 
mal, so  that  there  is  no  impassable  chasm  in  that  re- 
spect between  them  and  man ;  timid  birds  will  face 
great  danger  to  defend  their  young.  If  there  were 
no  unselfishness,  it  is  doubtful  if  we  should  have 
anything  in  the  world  at  all  but  the  elements  and 
insensate  plants,  or  perhaps  the  very  lowest  forms  of 
animal  life,  whose  offspring  need  no  care.  All  the 
higher  forms  of  animal  life,  as  well  as  men,  exist 
because  unselfishness  has  watched  over  the  beginnings 
of  their  existence ;  and  what  mainly  distinguishes 
human  beings  from  animals,  along  of  course  with 
higher  intelligence,  is  that  the  social  instincts  in  men 
are  intenser,  and  cover  longer  periods,  and  have  a 
wider  range.  According  to  Darwin,  human  beings  are 
simply  that  portion  of  the  animal  creation  in  whom 
variations  in  the  direction  of  unselfishness  and  in- 
telligence have  been  transmitted  and  perpetuated,  by 
which  they  have  secured  a  firmer  foothold  and  a  more 
commanding  place  on  the  earth.  Think  of  it :  if  the 
fishes  of  the  sea,  or  the  wild  animals  of  the  earth, 
or  even  the  birds  of  the  air  had  the  fellow-feeling 
and  the  intelligence  that  men  have,  would  they  allow 
themselves  to  be  so  easily  caught  or  captured  or  shot  ? 
Would  they  not  be  a  match  for  man ;  and  unless  some 
new  variations,  giving  greater  power  on  the  one  side 
or  the  other,  arose,  would  it  not  be  a  pitched  battle 
between  them  and  man  ?  We  are  men  because,  along 
with  more  of  mind,  we  do  care  for  one  another ;  they 
are  animals  because  they  are  to  such  an  extent  dis- 


DARWINISM  IN  ETHICS.  109 

social  rather  tha-n  social,  and  because  in  a  contest  each 
'  one  is  left  so  generally  to  fight  his  own  battle. 

Consider  next  the  community  or  the  tribe.  What 
parental  feeling  is  to  the  family,  community  or  tribal 
feeling  is  on  the  larger  scale.  Do  we  think  it  makes 
no  difference  whether  our  unselfishness  goes  beyond 
our  families ;  that  all  we  have  to  do  is  to  care  for  our- 
selves and  our  children ;  that  patriotism  and  zeal  for 
the  public  welfare  are  idle  sentiment ;  and  that  obedi- 
ence to  the  laws  is  necessary  only  so  far  as  it  is  for 
our  own  interest  ?  Darwin,  and  those  who  have  writ- 
ten in  his  spirit,  do  not  think  so ;  and  history  proves 
that  they  are  in  the  right.  In  times  of  peace,  as  one 
writer  ^  remarks,  sleek  and  prosperous  selfishness  may 
give  a  certain  element  of  strength  to  a  society.  But 
these  are  not  the  times  that  test  a  society ;  it  is  when 
dangers  arise,  either  from  without  or  from  within,  — 
it  is  in  times  of  peril,  that  the  real  strength  and  cohe- 
siveness  of  a  community  are  tested.  Can  it  put  down 
internal  dissensions  that  threaten  its  life  ?  Can  it 
withstand  a  foreign  foe  ?  For,  as  Darwin  shows,  not 
only  individuals  struggle  to  live,  but  communities  and 
nations ;  and  natural  selection  tends  to  build  up  or  to 
destroy  peoples  with  the  same  fatality  with  which  it 
determines  the  fate  of  individual  lives.  Who  does  not 
see  the  truth  of  what  Darwin  points  out,  that  even 

1  Prof.  Dr.  C.  C.  Everett  on  "The  New  Ethics,"  in  the  Unita- 
rian Review,  October,  1878,  —  a  most  suggestive  and  often  elo- 
quent article,  reprinted,  it  may  be  added,  in  the  author's  recent 
volume,  —  ••  Poetry,  Comedy,  and  Duty."  I  am  also  indebted  to 
Prof.  Georg  von  Gizycki's  valuable  article  on  "  Ethics  and  the 
Development  Theory,"  in  the  Popular  Science  Monthly,  July,  1885 
(translated  from  the  "  Deutsche  Rundschau"). 


110  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

in  the  case  of  animals  who  live  in  herds,  and  defend 
themselves  or  attack  their  enemies  in  concert,  they 
must  be  in  some  degree  faithful  to  one  another,  and 
if  they  have  a  leader  be  obedient  to  him,  else  they 
will  likely  be  exterminated  ?  How  much  more  truly 
is  this  the  case  with  men  !  Suppose  the  members  of 
a  tribe  are  given  to  murder,  robbery,  and  treachery 
among  themselves,  how  long  will  they  hold  together, 
even  if  they  have  no  external  foe  ?  And  if  they  have, 
how  easily  will  they  be  subjugated !  The  fact  is,  that 
a  tribe  or  community  cannot  live  at  all  unless  there 
is  more  of  morality  than  of  immorality  in  it ;  and  the 
great  amount  of  wrong  and  crime  that  exists  in  some 
savage  communities  seems  so  only  in  comparison  with 
the  higher  standards  of  morality  that  are  recognized  in 
civilized  communities,  and  does  not  interfere  with  the 
fact  that  it  is  less  than  among  savages  who  scarcely 
live  in  communities  at  all,  and  have  few,  if  any,  fixed 
customs  or  laws.  It  is  as  if  Nature  would  force  a 
community,  whether  possessing  any  disinterested  love 
of  virtue  or  not,  to  learn  some  semblance  of  it ;  for 
only  those  communities  that  do  so  learn  —  whose  mem- 
bers acquire  some  measure  of  self-control,  of  faithful- 
ness, of  public  spirit,  of  obedience  to  law  —  survive, 
and  others,  who  fail  to  meet  the  conditions  which 
Nature  fixes,  perish.  Darwin  says  in  so  many  words, 
"  A  tribe  including  many  members  who,  from  possess- 
ing in  a  high  degree  the  spirit  of  patriotism,  fidelity, 
obedience,  courage,  and  sympathy,  were  always  ready 
to  aid  one  another,  and  to  sacrifice  themselves  for  the 
common  good,  would  be  victorious  over  most  other 
tribes ;  and  this  would  be  natural  selection.  At  all 
times,  throughout  the  world,  tribes  have  supplanted 


DARWINISM  IN  ETHICS.  HI 

other  tribes;  and  as  morality  is  one  important  ele- 
ment in  their  success,  the  standard  of  morality  and 
the  number  of  well-endowed  men  will  thus  every- 
where tend  to  rise  and  increase." 

All  this  holds  good  equally  of  civilized  peoples. 
The  same  things  that  lifted  the  social  savage  above 
the  unsocial  savage  or  animal,  and  gave  him  the  pre- 
eminence, lift  the  civilized  man  out  of  the  ranks  of 
savagery  altogether,  and  give  to  civilized  States  right- 
ful pre-eminence  in  the  world.  Crude  interpreters 
of  Darwin's  theory  would  have  us  eschew  all  philan- 
thropy shut  up  our  asylums  and  hospitals,  abolish 
poor  laws,  and  let  the  weak  and  the  helpless  take  care 
of  themselves,  or  die.  But  this  would  not  be  rising 
to  a  higher  stage  of  civilization,  but  would  be  relaps- 
,ing  into  barbarism,  —  copying  after  the  Indians,  who 
leave  their  feeble  comrades  to  perish  on  the  plains ; 
or  the  Fijians,  who  when  their  parents  get  old  or  fall 
ill,  bury  them  alive  ;  or  those  animals  that  expel  a 
wounded  animal  from  the  herd,  or  gore  or  worry  it 
to  death.  Nay,  there  are  savages,  and  even  animals, 
who  are  superior  in  sentiment  to  these  heartless  Dar- 
winians; for  Darwin  tells  us  of  Indian  crows  that 
fed  two  or  three  of  their  blind  companions,  and  says 
that  he  himself  saw  a  dog  who  never  passed  a  cat 
that  lay  sick  in  a  basket  without  giving  her  a  few 
licks  with  his  tongue,  —  the  surest  sign  of  kind  feel- 
ing in  a  dog.  Destroy  the  social  instincts,  dry  up  the 
founts  of  sympathy  and  pity  in  man,  and  you  strike 
at  the  social  bond  itself ;  society  would  be  dissolved 
into  anarchy,  and  the  long,  slow,  painful  work  of 
building  up  the  race  of  man  would  have  to  be  taken 
up  again  from  the  beginning.     Let   any  community 


112  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

to-day  try  to  organize  itself  on  the  extreme  individ- 
ualistic plan,  with  no  charity,  since  each  man  looks 
after  himself  alone,  with  justice  for  those  who  are 
able  to  command  it,  the  rest  getting  along  without  it 
as  best  they  can;  and  let  it  enter  into  competition 
with  other  communities  in  whose  midst  the  poor  and 
sick  are  wisely  cared  for,  and  justice  is  done  to  every 
man,  woman,  and  child,  though  there  be  some  who 
are  totally  unable  to  get  it  for  themselves,  —  let  the 
struggle  come  to  a  clash  of  arms,  and  can  any  one 
doubt  what  the  result  will  be  ?  Selfishness,  Professor 
Everett  says,  will  give  its  money,  it  will  not  give  its 
life,  for  the  common  cause.  If  the  social  spirit  has 
been  weak  in  peace,  it  will  not,  by  a  miracle,  become 
suddenly  strong  in  war.  The  unsocial  community  will 
go  down,  as  it  deserves  to  go  down,  before  the  enthu- 
siasm, the  courage,  the  devotion  of  men  who  have  been 
bred  in  a  social  community  to  habits  of  sympathy  and 
public  spirit.  Yes,  if  the  community  whose  principle 
was  "  every  man  for  himself  "  were  by  a  bit  of  good 
fortune  to  be  isolated,  and  never  called  to  enter  into  a 
struggle  with  other  communities,  I  believe  in  time  it 
would  perish  from  dissensions  within  itself ;  it  would 
disintegrate,  like  any  organism  of  matter  whose  par- 
ticles are  no  longer  held  together  by  any  common  at- 
traction, and  from  which  the  animating  breath  of  life 
has  fled. 

The  thing  that  builds  up  a  community,  a  nation,  is 
not  less  but  more  sympathy  and  public  spirit,  — more 
of  all  the  virtues  that  spring  from  these  sources. 
Think  for  a  moment  simply  of  obedience,  reverence 
for  law,  whether  the  law  is  made  by  a  chief  or  by  a 
people  for   itself,  —  what   strength,  what  an   almost 


DARWINISM   IN   ETHICS.  113 

irresistible  power,  would  a  whole  people  trained  to 
such  a  habit,  have  !  The  Spartans  were  not  equal  in 
intellectual  power  to  other  Grecian  States,  but  for  a 
short  time  they  held  the  supremacy  over  all  Greece ; 
and  when  I  think  of  the  three  hundred  who  defended 
the  pass  at  Thermopylae  against  the  Persians,  and  held 
it  at  such  fearful  odds  until  their  last  man  had  fallen, 
and  remember  that  according  to  their  poet  nothing 
but  obedience  to  the  laws  of  Sparta  kept  them  at  their 
post,  I  do  not  wonder  that  a  country  which  bred  such 
a  soldiery  rose  once  to  the  very  head  of  Greece ! 

"  Stranger,  go,  and  to  the  Spartans  tell 
That  here,  obeying  their  commands,  we  fell," 

stands  graven  on  the  rock  as  their  memorial. 

Socrates  anticipated  the  thought  of  Darwin  and  of 
Bagehot,^  one  of  the  most  fruitful  thinkers  who  has 
followed  in  Darwin's  wake,  when  he  said  that  State 
in  which  the  citizens  pay  most  respect  to  the  laws 
is  in  the  best  condition  in  peace,  and  is  invincible  in 
war; 2  and  Socrates  himself  had  such  a  sense  of  the 
sanctity  of  the  laws  that  he  refused  to  flatter  and 
supplicate  the  judges  at  his  trial  (a  practice  which 
the  laws  forbade),  and  although  had  he  consented  to 
do  anything  of  the  kind  he  might  easily  have  been 
acquitted,  as  Xenophon  says,^  he  preferred  to  die  abid- 
ing by  the  laws,  rather  than  transgressing  them  to 
live.  What  could  withstand,  other  things  being  equal, 
a  nation  of  men  like  Socrates  ?  I  believe  that  the 
things  that  tend  to  make  a  people  strong,  permanently 
strong ;  that  tend  to  give  it  a  lasting  advantage  in  the 

1  See  his  Physics  and  Politics. 

2  Xenophou's  Memorabilia,  iv.  4,  15.  ^  jbid ,  iv.  4,  4. 

8 


114  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

struggle  for  existence ;  that  make  it  the  fittest,  and 
always  the  fittest,  to  survive,  —  are  good  things,  moral 
things ;  things  that  conscience,  from  its  ideal  stand- 
point, would  approve.  This  does  not  apply  to  tem- 
porary victories,  but  to  those  that  are  held.  Respice 
finein,  —  look  to  the  end  and  issue  of  all  things.  No 
one  can  doubt  that  those  great  eastern  empires  that  we 
have  glimpses  of  in  connection  with  Hebrew  history 
and  legend,  —  the  Egyptian,  the  mighty  Assyrian,  the 
Babylonian,  the  Persian,  —  perished  in  turn  because 
they  were  not  fit  to  live.  No  one  can  doubt  that 
Greece  fell  a  prey  to  Eome  when  she  was  no  longer 
worthy  to  rule  herself.  No  one  can  doubt  that  impe- 
rial Eome  herself  fell  when  it  was  best  she  should 
fall ;  and  that  it  was  owing  to  natural  selection  that 
the  barbarians  of  the  North  became  then  the  leaders 
of  the  world's  progress,  since  out  of  their  splendid 
energy  and  purer  stock  the  foremost  nations  of  a  new 
world  have  come.  It  is  difficult  to  speak  of  the  pres- 
ent and  the  future ;  but  the  same  laws  will  hold 
good.  Always,  I  believe,  will  the  nations  that  have 
anything  like  a  permanent  leadership  in  the  world's 
affairs  be  the  best  nations,  —  I  mean,  those  that  have 
the  largest  amount  of  virtue  and  intelligence  within 
their  borders.  It  may  be,  indeed,  that  no  nations  at 
present  existing  will  be  permanent;  this  would  not 
be  contrary  to  natural  selection,  but  a  proof  of  its 
power.  It  may  be  that  none  of  them  have  the  con- 
ditions of  permanency ;  for  natural  selection  is,  I 
believe,  as  high  in  its  demands,  as  severe,  as  unre- 
lenting, as  any  ideal  of  the  Deity  that  has  ever  been 
conceived.  Nations  that  are  full  of  selfishness  and 
injustice  cannot  stand ;  they  will  be  turned  and  over- 


DARWINISM   IN  ETHICS.  115 

turned;  the  great  powers  of  Nature  will  not  allow 
them  to  last.  Nations  with  ruling  classes  given  up  to 
luxury,  to  effeminate  habits,  to  wantonness,  to  "the 
lust  of  the  flesh,  the  lust  of  the  eyes,  and  the  pride 
of  life,"  and  to  contempt  of  the  poor  and  the  weak, 
will  not  stand.  "Behold,  this  was  the  iniquity  of 
Sodom,  —  pride,  fulness  of  bread,  and  abundance  of 
idleness ;  neither  did  she  strengthen  the  hand  of  the 
poor  and  needy.  And  they  were  haughty,  and  com- 
mitted abomination  before  me ;  therefore  I  took  them 
away  as  I  saw  good."  ^  So  speaks  Natural  Selection 
to-day,  and  always  will,  for  it  is  a  power  as  dread, 
as  summary,  and  as  almighty  as  Jahveh.  Nations 
full  of  violence  toward  weaker  countries,  eager  with 
yawning  necks  to  swallow  them  up  and  digest  them 
for  their  own  purposes,  will  not  stand ;  they  who  are 
insolent,  and  know  no  right  above  the  sword,  shall 
perish  by  the  sword.  The  power  of  natural  selection 
is  a  moral  power,  and  nothing,  no  success  or  triumph 
conceived  and  begotten  in  injustice,  shall  stand.  This 
great  Judge  of  all  the  earth  holds  np  the  balances, 
and  says  to  the  nations.  For  every  act  of  injustice 
thou  shalt  pay!  England,  France,  Germany,  Amer- 
ica, —  each  thinks  it  is  dear  to  the  heart  of  Destiny, 
and  cannot  fail;  and  Destiny  whispers  through  all 
the  experience  of  the  past,  "  I  care  for  none  of  you ; 
you  may  go,  have  your  little  day,  and  pass  away,  as 
Babylon  and  Greece  and  Eome  have  done  before 
you.  I  care  for  justice,  for  a  State  of  virtuous  citizens, 
with  pure  homes  and  clean  Jiearts  and  honest  lips ; 
men  and  women  who  put  truth  above  life,  and  w^ould 
rather  their  State  should  fall  than  that  it  should  rest 
1  Ezeklel,  xvi.  49,  50. 


116  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

on  injustice.  I  call  for  this.  Give  it  to  me,  0  Sons  of 
men,  and  you  shall  be  dear  to  me  ;  I  shall  cherish  you, 
and  your  work  shall  stand  while  the  earth  lasts  !  " 

This  is  my  interpretation  of  the  ethics  of  Darwin. 
Darwin  does  not  give  us  a  theory  of  ethics,  —  or 
rather,  so  far  as  he  does,  I  should  have  something  to 
say  in  criticism  of  it ;  but  he  does  a  greater  service,  I 
almost  think,  than  if  he  had  given  us  a  perfect  the- 
ory, —  he  shows  how  ethics  work  in  the  world.  It  is 
a  great  and  consoling  belief  that  the  powers  of  Na- 
ture are  on  the  side  of  man's  struggles  after  justice 
and  a  perfect  good.  The  Mighty  Power,  hid  from  our 
gaze  by  the  thin  screen  of  Nature  and  of  Nature's 
laws,  is  not  in  love  with  you  or  me,  but  it  is  with  our 
struggles  after  a  perfect  right,  for  to  them  it  gives 
fruition,  —  and  they  are  the  salt  that  keeps  the  earth 
from  spoiling,  and  their  effect  is  undying,  while  all 
else  is  being  thwarted,  cut  short,  and  passes  away. 
Every  brave  act  we  do,  and  every  true  word  we  utter 
helps  to  build  up  human  life  here  on  the  earth,  and 
every  mean  act  and  false  word  tend  to  pull  it  down 
and  destroy  it.  I  have  spoken  of  peoples  and  nations, 
—  let  us  not  think  that  these  are  things  too  large  for 
individual  actions  to  count  upon.  The  fate  of  a  na- 
tion depends  at  last,  not  on  kings  or  parliaments  or 
legislatures,  but  on  the  lives  and  characters  of  the  in- 
dividual men  and  women  who  compose  it.  ^-  The  well- 
being  of  the  State  depends  upon  the  well-doing  of  its 
individual  members."  ^  We  think  we  are  not  respon- 
sible for  the  evil  and  wrong  there  are  in  society,  —  we 
are,  to  the  extent  that  we  submit  to  them.     A  great 

1  Statement  of  Principles  of  Chicago  Society  for  Ethical 
Culture. 


DARWINISM  IN  ETHICS.  117 

wrong  cannot  be  done  by  a  community  unless  there  is 
the  spirit  of  wrong,  or  of  tolerance  for  wrong,  wide- 
spread among  its  members.  Each  one  of  us,  no  mat- 
ter how  unimportant  we  seem,  counts  as  a  factor  in 
the  public  sentiment  from  which  good  things  or  bad 
are  born.  Frederick  W.  Eobertson  —  that  tender  and 
strenuous  spirit  too  soon  passed  away  from  earth  — 
said :  "  There  are  current  maxims  in  Church  and  in 
State,  in  society,  in  trade,  in  law,  to  which  we  yield 
obedience.  For  this  obedience  every  one  is  respon- 
sible. For  instance,  in  trade  and  in  the  profession 
of  law  every  one  is  the  servant  of  practices  the  rec- 
titude of  which  his  heart  can  only  half  approve; 
every  one  complains  of  them,  yet  all  are  involved  in 
them.  Now,  when  such  sins  reach  their  climax,  as  in 
the  case  of  national  bankruptcy  or  an  unjust  acquittal, 
there  may  be  some  who  are  in  a  special  sense  the 
actors  in  the  guilt;  but  evidently  for  the  bankruptcy 
each  member  of  the  community  is  responsible  in  that 
degree  and  so  far  as  he  has  himself  acquiesced  in  the 
duplicities  of  public  dealing.  Every  careless  juror, 
every  unrighteous  judge,  every  false  witness,  has  done 
his  part  in  the  reduction  of  society  to  that  state  in 
which  the  monster  injustice  has  been  perpetrated."  ^ 
Yes,  you  do  count ;  and  the  only  difference  is  that 
you  may  count  in  those  influences  that  help  to  build 
man  up  here  on  the  earth,  or  in  those  that  tend  to 
weaken  and  undo  him.  You  may  build  on  the  sands, 
and  the  floods  will  come  and  wash  your  work  away ; 
or  on  the  rock,  and  your  work  will  stand  forever. 
You  may  help  to  make  a  nation  of  money-getters, 
close,  hard,  contemptuous  of  the  weak,  sacrificing 
1  Bobertson's  Sermons,  Third  Series,  p.  147. 


118  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

honor  and  shame  and  the  sense  of  humanity,  even  life 
itself,  for  the  sake  of  amassing  riches,  only,  to  see  the 
nation,  if  you  could  live  on,  crumble  and  disintegrate, 
and  its  wealth  in  ruins ;  or  you  may  cast  your  lot 
with  those  who  would  be  lovers  of  their  kind,  who 
would  rather  see  justice  done  than  amass  riches,  who 
would  be  clean  in  life,  and  honor  woman  and  protect 
the  defenceless ;  and  if  you  do  not  win  the  nation  to 
your  side,  you,  or  those  who  follow  after  you,  will  form 
the  saving  remnant,  by  whom  and  through  whom  a 
new  and  wiser  nation  may  arise.  Men  trying  to  rear 
States  without  justice  in  their  hearts  are  like  Sisy- 
phus rolling  his  giant  stones  up  hill,  only  to  see  them 
pulled  down  again  by  natural  gravity ;  and  when  one 
sees  them  anxious,  striving,  thinking  with  laws  and 
constitutions  and  courts  and  armies  to  buttress  them- 
selves about,  laboring  so  with  their  destiny,  one  thinks 
of  poor  Sisyphus  in  Homer's  lines,  heaving  and  strain- 
ing, the  sweat  the  while  pouring  down  his  limbs,  and 
the  dust  rising  upward  from  his  head.  ^'Wash  ye, 
make  you  clean;  put  away  the  evil  of  your  doings  from 
before  mine  eyes ;  seek  justice,  relieve  the  oppressed,'' 
is  the  voice  of  Natural  Selection  as  well  as  of  Israel's 
God.  Otherwise  man's  work  is  vanity,  and  all  the 
labor  and  pain  of  it  are  for  nothing ;  the  great  God  of 
the  world  will  not  allow  it  to  stand. 

I  permit  myself  two  remarks  in  closing.  Think 
of  the  Athenian  race,  whose  average  ability  Francis 
Galton,  another  writer  who  has  followed  in  Darwin's 
wake,  says  ^  was  nearly  two  grades  higher  than  our 
own ;  that  is,  as  much  as  our  race  is  above  that  of  the 
African  negro.  Why  did  this  marvellously-gifted  race 
1  Hereditary  Genius,  p.  843. 


DARWINISM  IN  ETHICS.  119 

decline?  Galton  says,  because  of  social  immorality; 
because,  in  plain  language,  marriage  became  unfash- 
ionable and  was  avoided,  and  courtesans  held  sway. 
Now,  ever}'  man  to-day,  whether  actually  immoral  or 
not,  who  has  light  thoughts  of  woman,  who  is  not  in- 
dignant when  she  is  dishonored,  who  lets  light  jests 
pass  his  lips  or  lewd  thoughts  linger  in  his  mind, 
helps  to  swell  the  tide  of  our  social  immorality,  for 
he  helps  to  make  the  atmosphere  in  which  it  grows. 
Acts  do  not  come  from  nothing;  they  come  from 
thoughts  and  words,  and  what  we  hear  others  say,  — 
from  a  thousand  and  one  nameless  things  that  seem 
in  themselves  to  count  for  nothing. 

On  the  other  hand,  let  us  not  imagine  that  the 
quiet  homely  virtues,  the  graces  of  the  heart,  count 
for  nothing  with  the  great  powers  of  Nature  with 
which  we  deal.  Never  let  us  think  that  physical 
strength  is  everything;  it  is  not  everything,  even 
in  the  animal  world.  Professor  Everett  has  beauti- 
fully said,  that  to  the  powers  of  natural  selection 
"the  delicate,  the  graceful,  the  tender,  the  beautiful 
are  as  dear  as  the  fierce  and  the  strong.  It  was  the 
great  law  of  natural  selection  itself  that  taught  the 
nightingale  to  sing,  and  that  painted  the  humming- 
bird with  his  changeful  hues.  It  is  this  that  whispers 
to  the  timid  hare  to  flee,  and  this  that  binds  the 
gentle  sheep  together  in  their  harmless  federation." 
The  gentler  virtues  all  count  in  humanity's  struggle 
for  existence.  As  there  are  no  light  thoughts  of 
human  suffering  that  do  not  help  to  make  men  cruel, 
so  there  are  no  sympathy  and  pity  that  do  not  help 
to  draw  men  nearer  together,  and  make  them  stronger 
in  any  time  of  danger  or  distress.     Quiet  fortitude  in 


120  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

a  mother  makes  brave  sons  and  daughters.  Love  in 
peace  makes  heroism  in  times  of  danger.  Selfishness 
disintegrates  and  disorganizes ;  love  builds  up  and 
welds  together.  Xations  stand  not  on  dollars,  not 
on  armies,  not  on  police,  but  on  righteousness  ;  and 
if  unrighteousness  becomes  rampant  in  a  community, 
not  all  its  dollars  or  its  police  will  save  it.  You  and 
I  count,  living  quiet,  inconspicuous  lives  as  we  do. 
Oh,  let  us  count  for  good,  for  purity,  for  unselfish- 
ness, —  for  all  that  makes  human  life  strong  and 
stable  on  the  earth ! 


VII. 

THE  SOCIAL  IDEAL. 

IT  is  sometimes  said  that  all  morality  involves  social 
relations.  There  can  be  no  question  that  a  large 
part  of  it  does.  What  is  justice  but  a  certain  kind  of 
conduct  or  relation  between  man  and  man  ?  What  is 
love,  what  is  kindness,  what  is  generosity,  what  is 
chivalry,  save  as  there  are  objects  to  which  these  feel- 
ings go  out  ?  What  is  truth,  if  there  is  no  one  to 
whom  to  be  truthful?  What  are  fidelity  and  loyalty 
but  ideal  types  of  social  relationship  ?  I  need  not 
speak  of  patriotism,  of  public  spirit,  so  patent  are 
their  references.  Even  what  are  called  personal  vir- 
tues, are  they,  after  all,  entirely  personal  ?  Veracity 
is  sometimes  called  a  personal  virtue ;  but  plainly  it 
means  keeping  one's  word  with  another.  Chastity  is 
called  a  personal  duty;  but  surely  chastity  is  not  a 
denial  of  the  relation  of  the  sexes,  but  a  pure  rela- 
tion of  the  sexes.  Temperance  is  a  personal  duty ; 
yet  temperance  is  hardly  an  end,  but  a  means  to  an 
end,  namely,  the  maintenance  of  the  supremacy  of  the 
rational  and  moral  in  us.  The  temperate  man  is  so 
much  more  a  man  ;  but  as  a  man  his  sphere  and  duty 
are,  in  large  measure,  with  men,  and  temperance  is  to 
fit  him  to  take  his  part  well  in  the  life  and  work  of 
humanity. 


122  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

Even  when  we  assert  some  stricter  truth,  some  nobler 
strain  of  honor  than  ordinarily  obtains  among  men,  it 
is  not  so  much  that  we  sever  ourselves  from  society 
as  that  we  yield  to  the  claims  of  an  ideal  society  ;  if 
we  see  and  will  a  higher  justice  than  the  State  com- 
mands, it  is  that  we  own  ourselves  members  of  a 
higher  State,  which  exists  as  yet  only  in  idea.  Every 
rising  above  custom  or  written  statute  is  an  assertion 
that  the  ideal  is  our  true  home ;  it  is  but  an  espous- 
ing of  the  ideal  as  over  against  the  incompleteness  of 
the  actual  and  the  sensible.  For  it  is  not  so  much  to 
society  as  actually  constituted,  as  to  the  social  ideal 
that  we  belong. 

But  though  our  life  is  properly  in  society,  it  is  pos- 
sible for  us  to  live  apart  and  according  to  our  own 
individual  caprice,  if  we  will.  Such  individualism  is 
the  primal  sin.  Falsehood,  unchastity,  every  form  of 
social  wrong  are  but  exalting  personal  caprice  over 
against  the  law  of  social  well-being.  Morality,  in  other 
than  its  strictly  personal  form,  consists  in  taking  ac- 
count at  least  of  two,  another  with  myself,  in  deter- 
mining my  action.  And  morality  widens  and  embraces 
new  duties  as  the  circles  of  relationship  widen,  and 
as  the  law  of  each  larger  circle  becomes  in  its  turn  the 
law  for  me.  As  matter  of  history,  so  long  as  a  man 
was  bent  on  self-preservation  merely,  he  was  hardly 
more  than  an  animal ;  he  began  to  be  human,  when 
the  thought  of  his  family  determined  him,  when  he 
owned  himself  a  part  of  it  and  acted  for  it,  to  main- 
tain and  defend  it.  He  became  still  more  human, 
when  he  was  a  member  of  a  community,  and  felt 
the  welfare  and  the  honor  of  the  community  to  be 
his  own ;  still  more  human  was  he  when  he  won  the 


THE   SOCIAL  IDEAL.  123 

thought  of  humanity,  and  would  tolerate  no  interests 
of  his  own,  nor  action  of  his  community,  which  tended 
to  hurt  or  injure  or  wrong  any,  even  the  humblest, 
child  of  man.  It  is  evident  that  the  universality  of 
our  social  feeling  is  the  measure  of  its  real  worth. 
If  I  feel  an  insult  to  myself  or  my  family,  or  the 
community  in  Avhich  I  live,  and  yet  have  no  sense  of 
wrong  when  some  one  outside  these  circles  is  similarly 
affronted,  plainly  I  do  not  value  man  as  man,  —  that 
is,  am  not  really  human,  —  but  have  simply  a  peculiar 
feeling  for  those  who  are  near  me.  Some  sense  of  the 
claims  of  every  human  being,  though  he  be  the  lowest 
and  the  worst,  and  that  will  not  allow  us  to  trample 
upon  him  though  he  be  fairly  in  the  dust  at  our  feet ; 
some  feeling  of  indescribable  awe,  even  though  it  be 
blended  with  pity,  when  any  human  form  passes  be- 
fore our  eye,  —  this  is  the  measure  and  the  test,  yes, 
the  very  significance,  of  morality. 

It  is  this  that  determines  the  form  of  the  social 
ideal.  And  let  me  say,  before  proceeding  farther,  that 
I  do  not  attempt  to  describe,  to  picture,  the  social 
ideal.  This  has  been  a  pleasing  and  ennobling  occu- 
pation for  many  men,  but  I  have  neither  the  wit  nor 
the  imagination  requisite  thereto.  I  can  only  in  a 
simple  way  indicate  its  principle.  And  this  principle 
is,  in  a  word,  that  in  the  ideal  order  every  man  shall  be 
an  end  as  well  as  a  means.  I  need  not  point  out  that 
this  principle  has  not  been  generally  recognized  in  the 
past.  Not  only  has  slavery  been  almost  universal,  but 
there  have  been  elaborate  justifications  of  slavery  by 
some  of  the  greatest  philosophers.  We  now  hardly 
know  what  a  battle  the  Antislavery  reformers  before 
our  late  war  had  to  fight.    The  notion  of  the  universal 


124  ETPIICAL   RELIGION. 

rights  of  man  is  a  modern  one.  It  is  neither  in  the 
Old  Testament  nor  in  the  New.  I  doubt  if  it  be  in 
the  Scriptures  of  any  of  the  religions  of  the  world. 
Plato  took  slavery  for  granted,  and  appears  to  have 
justified  it  in  remarking  that  the  statesman  should 
reduce  to  that  condition  those  who  are  ignorant  and 
base.^  Aristotle  argued  for  slavery,  that  it  was  not 
only  a  legal  part  of  the  economy  of  society,  but  that 
it  was  grounded  in  nature,  in  the  difference  between 
those  endowed  with  bodily  strength  and  those  who 
possessed  mental  power.^  In  fact,  against  a  very  wide 
experience  and  against  the  clever  reasonings  of  some 
of  the  thinkers  of  the  race,  our  brave  reformers  had 
but  to  plant  themselves  on  the  ideal  ground  of  the 
rights,  the  claims,  of  every  human  being,  and  say, 
"What  though  these  rights  have  been  denied  in  al- 
most all  the  past;  what  though  the  cries  of  outraged 
human  nature  have  been  suppressed,  and  the  slaves 
become  willing  slaves,  — do  not  the  rights  exist,  shall 
not  the  cries  now  be  heard,  and  shall  the  slaves  not 
themselves  be  summoned  to  arise  out  of  their  deathly 
sleep  ?  "  How  specious  may  you  find  the  defences  of 
past  slavery,  made  even  now !  Only  the  other  day  I 
was  reading  a  writer  who  says,  "  Eefinement  is  only 
possible  where  leisure  is  jjossible ;  and  slavery  first 
made  it  possible.  It  created  a  set  of  persons  born 
to  work  that  others  may  not  work,  and  not  to  think 
that  others  may  think.  .  .  .  The  patriarchs  Abraham, 
Isaac,  and  Jacob  could  not  have  had  the  steady  calm 
which  marks  them,  if  they  had  themselves  been  teased 

1  Zeller's  Philosophie  der  Griechen,  ii.  1  (3  Aufl.),  S.  755.     Cf. 
Plato's  Statesman,  309. 

2  Ibid.,  ii.  2,  S.  690.    Cf.  Aristotle's  Politics,  i.  5. 


THE   SOCIAL  IDEAL.  125 

and  hurried  about  their  flocks  and  herds."  ^  One  need 
not  deny  that  as  matter  ot*  history  there  is  some  truth 
in  liiis  ;  none  the  less  does  morality  say  that  it  would 
be  better  tiiat  rehnement  should  not  exist,  than  that 
it  should  rest  on  so  unrighteous  a  foundation.  His- 
tory tells  us  what  was,  not  what  might  have  been ; 
and  there  are  other  ways  in  which  an  equal  and  a  bet- 
ter refinement  might  have  come  without  any  enslaving 
of  one  human  being  by  another.  I  do  not  think  there 
is  any  genuine  refinement  that  does  not  consist  with  a 
fine  respect  for  the  rights  of  others.  Every  deference, 
every  courtesy,  every  kindness  that  is  not  in  some 
degree  shown  to  all  with  whom  we  come  in  contact, 
indicates  a  hidden  root  of  selfishness  from  which 
they  spring. 

The  form  of  the  social  ideal  is  then  that  of  equality. 
Not,  indeed,  similarity  of  place  and  function  for  every 
one  ;  not  that  all  should  do  the  same  work  or  get  the 
same  returns  for  their  work ;  but  simply  that  all  should 
be  in  turn  ends  as  well  as  means,  that  no  one  should 
dare  make  of  another  a  mere  instrument  to  his  own 
satisfactions,  but  should  regard  him  as  having  an  in- 
dependent worth  and  dignity  of  his  own.  Ah,  when 
shall  the  time  come  when  the  name  Man  shall  have 
more  honor  in  our  eyes  than  any  title  of  rank  or 
power ;  when  in  every  man  we  shall  see  the  king  that 

1  Bagebot,  Physics  and  Politics,  chap.  ii.  §  3.  Cf.  Tylor  (An- 
thropology, p.  435) :  "  Though  the  civilized  world  has  outgrown 
the  ancient  institution  [slavery],  the  benefits  which  early  society 
gained  from  it  still  renjain.  It  was  through  slave-labor  that 
agriculture  and  industry  increased,  that  wealth  accumulated,  and 
leisure  was  given  to  priests,  scribes,  poets,  philosophers,  to  raise 
the  level  of  men's  minds." 


126  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

is  really  there,  though  his  crown  be  soiled  and  his  gar- 
ments tattered ;  when  our  proudest  thought  shall  be, 
as  we  look  back  upon  our  own  past,  that  in  every  rela- 
tion of  life  we  have  owned  and  honored  the  man,  that 
we  have  remembered  the  ideal  royal  brotherhood  to 
which  we  all  belong  ?  I  believe  it  is  possible  not  to 
rest  in  our  own  thought  till  to  the  eye  of  the  soul 
that  time  shall  have  come  ;  till  in  vision  we  see  human- 
ity transfigured ;  till  the  everlasting  principles  of  jus- 
tice are  inwrought  into  every  fibre  of  its  life ;  till  one 
tide  of  love  and  of  joy  sweep  through  it,  and  it  is  in- 
deed lifted  out  of  the  realm  of  the  things  that  como 
and  go,  and  becomes  a  partner  in  the  eternity  of  the 
purpose  that  created  it.  I  see  not  how  it  is  possible 
to  stop  short  of  this.  I  see  not  how  one  can  be  con- 
tent with  aiming  at  slightly  ameliorated  earthly  con- 
ditions. I  see  not  how  the  impulse  that  leads  him 
to  go  so  far  does  not  lead  him  to  go  farther.  I  see 
no  rest  save  in  the  thought  of  the  perfect.  I  see  no 
satisfaction,  no  peace  for  the  individual  soul  save  in 
losing  itself  in  allegiance  to  that  limitless  idea,  in 
making  it  to  move  us,  stir  us,  impel  us,  and  give  a 
limitless  sanctity  to  each  particular  act  we  do. 

I  believe  in  a  "  City  of  the  Light ! "  ^  It  is  the  social 
ideal ;  and  from  the  thought  of  it,  from  the  consecra- 
tion to  it,  and  the  ordering  of  our  lives  in  accordance 
with  its  demands,  I  look  for  a  new  birth  of  religion 
in  the  world.  We  are  builders  of  that  city.  There 
are  those  who  not  in  lightness,  but  in  a  sad  sincerity, 
abandon  prayer.  It  is  no  longer  possible  to  think  of 
the  city  as  a  boon  coming  down  out  of  the  heavens,  — 

1  The  reference  is  to  the  beautiful  lines  under  that  title  by 
Professor  Adier.    See  p.  277  of  this  volume. 


THE   SOCIAL   IDEAL.  127 

to  look  for  it  from  without.  The  burden  is  laid  on 
human  beings ;  honor  calls  us  to  bear  it ;  the  very  pur- 
pose of  our  being  is  to  bear  it.  A  voice  from  out  the 
unseen  itself  seems  to  say  :  "  Arise,  O  Man !  from  thy 
knees,  and  act.  I  call  thee  to  be  not  a  suppliant,  but  a 
creator ;  re-perform  the  primal  magic  now,  and  out  of 
the  chaos  and  the  darkness  that  thou  seest  within  and 
about  thee  bring  thou  order  and  bring  thou  light ! " 
If  prayers  would  bring  the  "  Kingdom  of  God,"  should 
we  not  think  that  eighteen  centuries  of  Christian  pray- 
ing would  have  brought  it  ?  And  if  they  have  not,  if 
the  condition  of  the  world,  the  selfishness  of  human 
hearts,  the  injuries,  the  wrongs,  the  hardness  and  con- 
tempt of  the  higher  laws  and  commandments,  yes,  and 
the  low  content  and  practical  unbelief  in  the  possibil- 
ity of  anything  better  that  so  widely  prevail,  are  all 
an  open  and  patent  contradiction  of  that  ideal  order 
of  things,  —  what  is  the  lesson,  what  is  the  moral  to 
be  drawn  from  the  facts  themselves,  but  that  so  long 
as  we  look  without  and  above  the  answer  will  never 
come  ;  that  religion,  if  it  will  be  religion  and  no  more 
child's  play,  must  radically  change  its  attitude,  and 
set  men  themselves  to  the  accomplishment  of  the  task, 
which  they  have  so  long  intrusted  to  another  ? 

Having  now  considered  the  social  ideal  as  regards 
its  principle,  the  element  of  perfection  belonging  to 
it,  and  the  true  method  for  its  accomplishment,  let 
us  ask.  What  is  its  practical  meaning  for  us  to-day ; 
what  is  its  bearing  upon  our  political  institutions,  and 
the  forms  and  habits  of  our  social  life  ?  First,  in  re- 
gard to  the  State.  In  ancient  times,  ethics  was  almost 
identical  with  politics  ;  a  truly  moral  life  was  one 
which  subserved  the  interests  of  the  State.     Our  ideal 


128  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

is  wider.  Aristotle  would  regard  barbarians,  —  that 
is,  those  who  were  not  Greeks.  —  as  little  better  than 
animals,  and  justified  war  to  the  end  of  making  them 
slaves.^  To  us,  nations  have  rights  over  against  na- 
tions, as  individuals  over  against  individuals  ;  and  it 
is  not  permitted  one  nation  to  make  another  an  in- 
strument to  its  own  ends  merely.  The  social  ideal 
demands,  in  a  word,  a  law  of  nations.  It  does  not 
forbid  war,  nor  does  it  forbid  conquest ;  but  it  forbids 
either  of  these  for  selfish  aggrandizement.  It  makes 
the  holding  of  a  dependency  for  commercial  interests 
and  profit  merely,  without  a  conscious  purpose  of 
educating  and  civilizing  and  fitting  those  who  belong 
to  it  for  the  duties  of  citizenship,  a  crime.  It  was 
such  a  mere  business  dependency  that  Great  Britain 
wished  to  make  of  her  colonies  in  America,  and  it 
was  this  that  roused  their  indignation  and  led  the 
embattled  farmers  at  Concord  stream  to  fire 

**  .  .  .  the  shot  heard  round  the  world." 

And  though  I  grant  that  civilization  has  a  perfect 
right  to  dispossess  barbarism  of  an  exclusive  and 
profitless  occupation  of  the  soil,  it  is  none  the  less  a 
crime  and  a  heinous  crime  to  do  as  our  country  has 
done,  —  treat  the  dispossessed  barbarians  as  if  they 
had  no  claims  whatever  upon  us.  The  Indians  are 
human  beings,  they  have  the  rights  of  human  be- 
ings ;  and  if  they  cannot  defend  those  rights,  all  the 
more  shame  on  that  government  which  will  wantonly 
trample  upon  them.  The  Indians  might  have  been 
elevated;  they  may  still  be  elevated.  It  may  be  ques- 
tioned whether  there  is  a  race  of  men  on  the  earth 
1  Politics,  1.  8. 


THE   SOCIAL  IDEAL.  129 

which,  if  humanely  and  wisely  treated,  may  not  lose 
its  savagery  and  take  a  place  in  the  ranks  of  civilized 
peoples.  Not  all  the  interests  of  civilization  justify 
injustice.  Rather  is  it  the  problem  for  the  superior 
race  to  lift  the  other  with  it,  to  use  its  superiority 
and  its  strength  for  service  and  not  for  oppression. 

The  principle  of  the  social  ideal  holds,  further,  in 
the  relations  between  the  officers  of  any  particular 
State  and  its  citizens.  The  time  is  gone  by  when  any 
king  or  emperor  can  lay  claim  to  the  unrequited  service 
of  his  subject.  In  equity  the  claim  never  did  exist, 
though  it  has  existed  often  enough  in  fact.  Nay,  the 
sting  is  half  taken  out  of  monarchy  and  the  reproach 
almost  from  despotism  itself,  when  the  aim  of  the 
monarch  and  the  despot  comes  to  be  to  use  his  power 
for  securing  and  defending  the  rights  of  the  citizens 
as  against  one  another  or  against  any  external  power. ^ 
One  may  be  freer  under  a  monarch  than  under  the 
rule  of  a  class.  It  is  not  the  name  or  form  of  gov- 
ernment, but  whether  the  interests  of  all  its  citizens 
are  made  supreme,  that  is  of  highest  moment  in  any 
State.  What  are  the  holders  of  public  office  in  our 
own  land  ?  Are  they  there  for  service,  or  are  they 
there  for  personal  profit  ?  Are  they  seeking  their 
own  ends  merely,  or  are  they  respecting  and  securing 
the  ends  of  the  general  welfare  ?  I  will  not  answer 
the  question.  And,  in  truth,  I  am  not  so  much  con- 
cerned for  a  particular  answer  as  to  bring  out  the 
meaning  of  the  principle  of  which  I  am  treating; 
and  I  ask.  Is  not  the  very  notion  of  it  faint  and  un- 

1  This  may  be  said  to  have  been  the  significance  of  the 
Absolute  Monarchy  in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  as 
contrasted  with  the  old  Feudal  monarchy. 

9 


130  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

certain  in  the  public  mind  ?  Is  it  not  almost  for- 
gotten that  men  in  entering  the  public  service  do  so 
for  public  service  ?  Is  it  not  deemed  natural,  that 
once  in  the  public  employ  they  should  reward  them- 
selves for  their  laborious  exertions  in  getting  there, 
—  yes,  and  their  friends  also,  their  faithful  friends, 
who  helped  them  in  the  struggle  ?  What  matters  it 
that  in  accordance  with  our  democratic  principles  we 
have  rotation  of  office,  if  the  effect  is  only,  when  a 
change  of  parties  or  of  "  bosses  "  conies,  to  introduce 
a  new  set  of  selfish  men  to  office,  and  thus  to  distrib- 
ute the  corruption  and  make  it  wider  and  more  general 
in  the  community  ?  It  is  said  that  we  want  "  busi- 
ness principles  "  in  our  civil  service ;  and  in  the  sense 
in  which  the  reformers  use  this  phrase  I  entirely  agree 
with  them,  —  in  the  sense  of  fitness,  and  of  fitness  de- 
termined by  no  personal  or  partisan  preferences  on  the 
part  of  those  who  appoint.  But  in  another  sense  of 
the  word  "  business,"  the  very  root  and  foundation  of 
the  evil  in  the  matter  is  the  forgetting  the  essential 
distinction  between  politics  and  business.  Business  ! 
we  all  know  what  that  means  :  it  is  for  profit,  and 
not  for  any  one  or  every  one,  but  for  ourselves.  The 
business  impulse  is  to  make  that  profit  as. great  as 
possible :  and  with  this  idea  and  aim  in  politics  what 
other  result  could  we  expect  than  just  that  of  which 
we  hear  now  general  complaint  ?  I  maintain  on  the 
other  hand  that  public  life  is  not  business ;  that  it  is 
a  stage  higher  than  business ;  that  a  dignity  attaches 
to  it  that  cannot  attach  to  any  undertakings  on  our 
own  account ;  that  it  virtually  means  giving  up  private 
aims,  and  adopting  public  ones ;  that  it  means  living 
in   the  State  and  for  the  State;  that  the  pecuniary 


THE   SOCIAL   IDEAL.  131 

return  which  one  receives  is  not  reward  or  profit  or 
gain,  but  salary,  given  not  so  much  /or,  as  to  support 
one  in  service.  It  is  the  idea  of  the  "  salaried  service 
of  the  State  "  that  needs  to  be  introduced  ;  and  if  our 
office-holders  do  not  have  it,  and  our  Congress  has  so 
imperfectly  grasped  it,  it  is  because  the  community 
has  not  got  it,  —  because  well-nigh  everything,  for- 
sooth, being  with  us  a  matter  of  business,  religion 
itself  sometimes  being  no  better,  we  do  not  distinctly 
see  why  politics  should  be  the  sole  exception. 

Moreover,  if  the  principle  of  the  social  ideal  has 
this  application  to  the  State,  it  has  also  another.  The 
social  ideal  commands  that  the  stronger  members  of 
society  respect  the  weaker.  The  state  of  nature  is 
the  reverse  of  this,  and  only  as  political  communities 
are  formed  is  protection  vouchsafed  to  the  weak,  and 
a  curb  placed  on  the  self-assertive  passions  of  the 
strong.  What  is  the  meaning  of  our  courts  of  justice, 
but  to  see  that  what  many  a  man  would  like  to  do  he 
shall  not  do,  or  if  he  has  done  it,  that  he  be  punished  ? 
What  would  the  civil  rights  of  any  of  us  to-day 
amount  to,  if  there  were  no  government  to  guarantee 
them  ?  In  fact  any  civilized  government  at  the  pres- . 
ent  day  is  a  partial  realization  of  the  social  ideal,  and 
all  such  governments  have  an  increasing  part  to  play 
in  furthering  it.  For  where  shall  the  limit  be  set  of 
government  interference  in  behalf  of  the  weak  as 
against  the  strong  ?  Does  government  exist  solely 
to  protect  life  and  property  ?  But  suppose  the  life 
of  many  is  barely  worth  the  having,  why  may  not 
government  interfere  to  make  it  better  worth  the 
having  ?  Why  do  we  have  public  education,  why  do 
we  have  interference  with  the  order  of  industrial  life, 


132  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

and  the  prevention  of  the  employment  of  children 
under  a  certain  age,  or  of  women  save  under  certain 
conditions  ?  Men  can  live  without  education ;  and 
children  and  women  can  live,  while  they  live,  though 
they  go  to  work  before  they  are  ten  years  of  age  and 
^vork  more  than  ten  or  twelve  hours  a  day.  The  State 
evidently  recognizes  by  these  its  provisions  that  it  is 
not  merely  to  protect  life,  but  to  make  life  tolerable. 
Why  may  it  not  aim  to  make  it  more  than  tolera- 
ble ?  Why  may  it  not  strive  to  give  opportunity  at 
least  for  every  life  to  become  a  positive  blessing,  both 
to  itself  and  to  others  ?  And  as  for  property,  why 
may  not  the  State  aim,  not  merely  at  protecting  it  as 
it  stands,  however  it  may  have  been  won,  but,  without 
arbitrarily  disposing  of  it,  at  so  legislating  that  prop- 
erty may  be  more  generally  distributed  ?  Is  the  State 
doing  its  duty  when  by  the  character  of  its  legislation, 
by  its  granting  of  privileges,  it  tends  to  assist  the  pro- 
cess of  the  accumulation  of  property  in  the  hands 
of  a  few,  and  to  widen  the  gap  between  the  different 
classes  in  the  community  ?  I  have  no  scheme  to  pro- 
pose ;  I  am  simply  asking  for  the  limits  of  the  ap- 
plication of  a  principle.  And  I  do  not  believe  that 
there  are  any  limits  to  be  set,  as  the  philosophers  say, 
a  priori ;  the  limits  are  simply  in  what  the  State  can 
accomplish;  and  this  depends  in  turn  upon  what  those 
think  and  want  who  compose  the  State.  A  revolution 
of  public  sentiment,  or  an  awakening  of  the  public 
thought,  might  lead  to  the  enlargement  of  the  sphere 
of  the  State's  action,  so  that  it  shouhi  do  for  the  less 
favored  portions  of  the  community  what  now  it  does 
not  dream  of  doing.  It  is  not  any  particular  duty, 
but   the  idea  and  mission  of  the  State,  that  I  now 


THE   SOCIAL  IDEAL.  133 

urge;  I  urge  that  it  stands  for  justice,  for  the  com- 
mon good ;  that  when  men  act  defiantly  of  the  common 
good,  they  are  to  be  brought  to  submission  before  it ; 
that  its  goal  is  indeed  no  other  than  the  goal  of  re- 
ligion, —  a  perfect  social  state,  —  and  that  it  ditfers 
from  religion  only  in  the  element  of  force  which  it 
uses  ;  that  a  genuine  religion  and  a  genuine  and  far- 
seeing  politics  would  go  hand  in  hand.  The  social 
ideal  is  the  goal  of  all  our  institutions.  There  ought 
to  be  no  merely  secular  politics.  The  statesman  too 
should  be  a  priest,  and  while  toiling,  planning  here 
among  the  intricacies  and  difficulties  and  disorders  of 
public  life,  should  have  his  eye  on  the  heavens,  and 
be  guided  and  sanctified  by  the  principle  that  makes 
heaven  and  earth  one. 

But  the  social  ideal  has  closer  applications  to  us. 
We  must  all  live,  but  we  have  not  all  equal  control 
of  the  means  of  subsistence,  nor  equal  opportunities 
to  create  them.  We  have  not  all  first-hand  access  to 
the  soil ;  and  we  are  dependent  not  only  on  those 
who  cultivate  it,  but  on  those  who,  in  whatever  way, 
get  control  of  its  products.  We  want  not  only  food, 
but  clothing,  shelter,  means  of  comfort,  even  of  lux- 
ury;  for  in  the  economical  sense  all  is  counted  luxury 
that  delights  the  eye,  that  quickens  the  intelligence, 
that  develops  the  higher  parts  of  our  being.  Every 
man  has  in  him  the  possibilities  of  a  more  than  merely 
material  existence.  Food,  clothing,  shelter,  are  after 
all  but  a  scaffolding,  on  which  the  nobler  house  of 
the  soul  is  to  be  reared.  But  owing  to  varying  cir- 
cumstances and  varying  natural  abilities,  one  part  of 
the  community  comes  to  be  dependent  on  the  other  for 
the  supply  of  its  physical  and  higher  necessities.     In  a 


134  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

word,  there  arises  the  relation  of  employer  and  em- 
ployed. This  is  not  the  original  relation,  which  was 
rather  that  of  master  and  slave,  but  it  is  that  which 
now  well-nigh  universally  prevails  in  civilized  coun- 
tries. Can  we  hesitate  to  say  that  the  principle  of  the 
social  ideal  has  an  application  here;  that  in  industry,  in 
business  of  every  kind,  we  should  not  use  any  man  as 
means  to  our  ends  merely,  but  should  also  regard  him 
as  an  end  in  himself  ?  I  can  see  no  reason  for  making 
the  exception.  I  know  I  may  seem  to  contradict  the 
ordinary  principles  of  business ;  I  know  the  maxim 
is  that  every  one  must  look  out  for  himself.  But  I 
must  dissent  from  such  a  maxim  ;  for  though  in  form 
it  is  perfectly  true,  and  every  one  must  look  out  for 
himself,  the  negative  that  lurks  behind  it  is  a  lying 
negative,  for  that  I  am  not  bound  to  look  out  for  an- 
other is  false.  It  was  a  specious  excuse  for  that  sin 
that  had  "  the  primal  eldest  curse  upon  it ;  "  it  is  a 
denial  of  the  social  bond ;  it  hides  that  spirit  which 
if  it  had  unrestricted  course,  and  were  not  checked 
by  selfish  prudence,  would  make  an  anarchy  of  social 
life.  Yet  I  would  not  have  an  air  of  harshness  in 
saying  this.  I  would  not  speak  in  my  own  name ;  but 
I  would  rather  call  up  the  procession  of  weary,  toil- 
worn  faces,  of  bowed  forms,  of  stunted  figures,  start- 
ing in  the  earliest  beginnings  of  human  history  and 
not  failing  down  to  the  present  day,  who  have  toiled 
and  stitched  and  hammered  and  dug  and  delved  and 
sweat  for  man,  and  bid  this  long  procession,  this  un- 
broken array,  plead  for  me.  Ah  !  their  words,  nay, 
their  speechless  entreaties,  their  dumb  and  reproach- 
ful looks  are  more  moving,  more  eloquent,  than  can 
possibly  be  any  words  of  mine.    They  say,  they  mean, 


THE   SOCIAL   IDEAL.  135 

though  they  could  hardly  distinctly  explain  to  you, 
that  there  was  something  in  them  which  never  had 
a  chance  to  grow  ;  that  though  now  and  then  they 
caught  a  glimpse  of  the  light,  and  knew  it  by  the  joy 
it  gave  them,  the  darkness  was  ever  shutting  down 
upon  them,  till  at  last  they  did  not  know  whether 
there  was  any  light  more  ;  that  their  whole  existence 
was  spent  in  getting  the  means  for  further  existence ; 
that  they  knew  that  what  they  produced  went  some- 
where, but  it  was  not  to  them,  save  to  enable  them  to 
continue  the  weary  round ;  that  they  knew  that  great 
things  were  in  the  world,  that  great  deeds  were  doing, 
but  that  they  had  no  part  or  share  in  them,  and  they 
could  only  pray  the  gods  to  give  them  grace  to  bear, 
for  to  enjoy  was  evidently  not  allowed  them. 

Ah!  is  there  a  sadder  thought  in  the  world  than 
that  of  the  waste  of  the  possibilities  that  are  thrown 
into  it  ?  Happy  is  he  who  never  had  this  reflection 
in  looking  back  upon  his  own  life,  but  happier  still 
he  who  has  never  been  the  cause  of  such  reflections 
or  of  such  a  fact  in  another !  There  is  no  need  of 
waste.  I  speak  not,  of  course,  of  the  order  of  Nature, 
but  of  the  order  of  human  life,  over  which  we  have 
control.  It  is  not  the  gods  who  decree  it,  but  we 
who  permit,  nay,  who  cause  it ;  every  failure  to  act 
according  to  the  principle  of  the  ideal  which  we  are 
considering,  is  a  permitting,  a  virtual  causing,  of  such 
a  waste.  I  know  the  employer  gives  his  workmen 
wages ;  but  what  determines  the  rate  of  wages  that 
he  pays  ?  If  his  motive  is  profit,  and  he  proceeds 
according  to  business  principles,  he  gives  only  so 
much  wages  as  he  must  give  in  order  to  gain  that 
profit.     If  the  workmen  simply  want  or  demand  more, 


136  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

he  does  not  need  to  give  more ;  only  when  they  are 
in  a  situation  virtually  to  force  him  to  give  more, 
will  he  do  so.  In  a  word,  he  considers  simply  his 
own  ends,  and  uses  others  merely  as  means  to  those 
ends.  Of  course,  it  is  understood  that  in  so  speaking 
I  have  not  in  mind  any  individual  man  or  >  men,  but 
simply  men  so  far  as  actuated  hy  business  motives.  It 
is  a  principle  I  have  in  mind,  —  a  principle  contradic- 
tory to  the  principle  of  the  social  ideal. 

Sometimes  one  may  hear  the  commercial  estimate 
of  workmen  expressed  in  the  most  outspoken  and  un- 
hesitating manner.  "  Will  any  business  man,''  said 
the  president  of  a  horse-car  company,  in  Boston,  a 
few  years  ago,  "tell  me  the  difference  between  buy- 
ing labor  and  buying  hay,  grain,  horses,  and  other 
supplies  ?  "  And  I  think  the  answer  must  be  given 
that  there  is  no  diiference,  from  the  purely  business 
standpoint.  If  the  employer  has  only  his  own  ends 
in  view,  what  difference  can  it  make  to  him  what  the 
means  are  by  which  the  ends  are  reached  ?  A  ma- 
chine in  a  factory  is  just  as  good  as  a  man,  perhaps 
as  a  dozen  men,  viewed  merely  as  so  much  muscular 
force  and  skill ;  and  the  purely  business  manufacturer 
will  have  machines  just  as  fast  as  he  can  get  them, 
for  in  fact  they  require  no  wages  at  all.  He  may 
use  machines,  and  the  finer  and  more  ingenious  they 
are  the  better ;  and  he  may  treat  them  as  he  likes. 
He  may  make  fire,  wind,  steam,  water,  all  the  forces 
of  Nature,  his  servants.  Yes,  he  may  harness  the 
beasts  of  the  field,  and  make  them  to  do  his  bidding ; 
for  I  join  in  that  old  sentiment  of  human  dignity 
which  finds  all  that  is  not  moral  and  rational  to  be 
rightfully  tributary  to  man.     But  when   he  touches 


THE   SOCIAL  IDEAL.  137 

another  human  being  this  whole  order  of  subordi- 
nation ceases,  and  he  dares  not,  —  in  the  name  of 
the  Highest  Law,  I  say  it,  he  dares  not,  —  make  him 
a  mere  tool  or  servant  for  himself.  Eather  must  he 
say,  "  Together  we  stand,  together  we  win  whatever 
recompense  for  our  toil  we  do  win  ;  and  though  I, 
as  the  leader  in  the  enterprise,  have  the  right  to  the 
leader's  honor,  and  to  the  leader's  share  of  the  recom- 
pense ;  and  though,  as  I  undertake  the  task,  you  must 
submit  to  my  directions,  and  not  I  to  yours,  —  you 
are  my  fellow-soldier,  and  not  a  hireling;  I  am,  at 
best,  your  captain,  not  your  master,  in  the  march  of 
industry." 

The  solution  of  the  industrial  problem,  —  the  aboli- 
tion of  all  poverty  that  is  not  in  itself  dishonorable, 
the  lifting  of  the  laboring  classes  to  the  full  dignity 
and  worth  of  freemen,  the  granting  to  all  at  least  the 
means  and  the  opportunity  for  true  and  noble  lives,  — 
is  after  all  a  very  simple  thing:  a  simple  thing,  I  say, 
though  it  has  not  been  achieved  in  the  centuries  of 
the  past,  and  though  it  should  not  be  achieved,  alas ! 
for  many  centuries  to  come.  It  is  not  by  combinations 
of  labor  (though  these  are  necessary  and  justifiable  in 
the  present  distress),  for  this  is  but  matching  selfish- 
ness against  selfishness,  class  against  class ;  it  is  not 
by  government  assistance  to  labor,  it  is  not  by  any 
species  of  legislation,  though  these  may  both  serve  in 
their  way ;  it  is  not  by  profuse  charity,  which  often 
injures  those  who  receive,  and  by  no  means  always 
blesses  those  who  give,  as  the  very  means  for  charity 
are  often  won  by  headlong  selfishness  and  wrong.  It 
is  a  much  simpler  and  a  much  more  radical  remedy 
than  any  of  these.     It  is  in  the  reception  of  a  new 


138  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

principle  into  the  hearts  of  men;  it  is  in  taking  the 
law  of  the  social  ideal  and  making  it  the  law  of  busi- 
ness itself ;  it  is  in  treating  every  man  in  our  employ 
not  as  a  tool,  but  as  a  man,  and  giving  him  the  means 
to  realize  the  ends  of  a  man  ;  it  is  in  knowing  no 
profit  that  we  do  not,  in  some  measure,  make  common 
with  him. 

There  are  still  other  and  closer  bearings  of  the 
social  ideal  on  our  lives.  I  can  only  hint  at  them. 
We  stand  in  the  relation  to  one  another  of  husbands 
and  wives,  of  parents  and  children.  Here,  too,  the 
instincts  of  self-assertion  have  had  free  play  in  the 
past ;  and  the  notion  is  but  dawning  upon  us  that 
the  wife  is  not  rightfully  the  servant  of  her  husband, 
nor  are  the  children  merely  means  for  the  parents' 
ends.  Though  the  sphere  of  the  wife  may  be  different, 
it  is  an  equal  sphere  to  that  of  her  husband.  As  has 
been  said,^  she  is  not  a  satellite,  but  a  twin  star  with 
him.  And  the  children,  —  though  their  weakness 
exposes  them  to  mistreatment,  all  the  more  sacred  is 
the  obligation  to  bear  in  mind  the  manhood  and  the 
womanhood  that  are  developing  in  them,  to  make 
them  independent  ends  of  our  action  and  our  love. 
But  though  the  bearings  of  the  principle  here  are 
being  increasingly  recognized,  are  there  no  others  in 
our  homes  whom  we  still  incline  to  regard  as  means 
merely  to  our  own  ends  ?  Yes,  there  are  those  in  our 
houses,  if  not  our  homes,  whom  we  distinctly  indicate 
by  the  title  "  servants."  Do  you  say.  Ah,  but  they  are 
not  ours ;  they  are  merely  waiting  on  us ;  we  support 
them,  and  we  support  them  amply,  and  they  are  in- 
deed incidentally  getting  a  valuable  training  with  us 
1  By  Professor  Adler. 


THE   SOCIAL   IDEAL.  139 

that  will  be  of  use  to  them  in  the  future  ?  I  grant  all 
this.  I  know  they  are  not  slaves  ;  I  know  they  may 
be  kindly  treated ;  I  know,  on  their  side,  they  may  be 
satisfied  with  what  they  have  and  get.  But  I  ask, 
Are  we  satisfied  ?  Are  they  not  human  beings ;  have 
they  not  the  ends  of  human  beings,  and  can  we  rest 
till  we  concede  them  these  ends  ?  Can  we  rest  short 
of  a  universal  application  of  this  law  of  the  social 
ideal  ?  I  confess  that  I  want  no  one  to  be  iny  "  ser- 
vant," in  the  ordinary,  one-sided  use  of  that  term. 
The  consciousness  that  any  one  is,  does  not  at  all  elate 
me.  I  like  not  these  fawning  airs,  these  humble 
looks,  this  punctiliousness  and  obsequiousness.  They 
do  not  become  man,  or  woman  either ;  they  humble 
me,  as  if  I  were  guilty  of  them  myself.  I  want  no 
service  that  I  do  not  return.  I  feel  that  if  I  do  not 
honor  another  I  do  not  honor  myself,  for  I  funda- 
mentally am  every  other :  it  is  one  common  nature, 
wherein  we  all  share.  I  am  lifted  with  every  honor, 
and  cast  down  with  every  shame,  that  comes  to  an- 
other child  of  man.  Am  I  asked,  What,  then,  are  to 
be  the  forms  of  our  domestic  life  ?  I  answer,  I  have 
no  thought  of  forms,  I  have  no  thought  even  of  the 
destruction  of  the  present  forms.  I  ask  only  for  the 
admission  of  a  principle  into  men's  hearts  ;  I  only  ask 
that  it  be  trusted,  and  allowed  to  modify  and  fashion, 
or  destroy  and  recreate,  as  it  will. 

Though  I  have  traversed  much  ground,  I  have  done 
so  only  to  illustrate  the  compass  and  sweep  of  a  prin- 
ciple. And  though  I  have  not  sought  to  picture  the 
social  ideal,  but  only  to  indicate  its  principle,  and  test 
the  present  order  of  our  life  by  it,  yet  if  we  can  im- 


140  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

agine  the  State,  and  the  intercourse  of  the  States, 
transfigured  by  it;  if  we  can  imagine  business  and 
industry  transformed  under  its  hallowing  influence ; 
if  we  can  see  our  homes,  and  our  relationship  to  the 
humblest,  lit  up  and  glorified  by  the  free  acceptance 
of  it,  — we  can,  to  the  inward  eye  at  least,  dimly  pre- 
figure what  the  answering  reality  would  be.  I  deem 
it  not  too  great  a  thought  for  the  humblest  man.  The 
humblest  man  has  that  in  him  which  will  respond  to 
it ;  the  loneliest  man  may  yet  cherish  those  feelings 
and  purposes  which  would  fit  him  for  membership  in 
the  ideal  society ;  the  poorest  man  may  find  existence 
for  a  moment  rich  in  the  contemplation  of  it;  the 
sick  man  may  find  in  it  "  medicine  for  sickness  ; '' 
the  dying  man  may  feel  himself  growing  eternal  in 
the  thought  of  it.  For  the  issues  of  every  individual 
existence  are  there;  our  spirits  live  or  die,  as  they 
rise  to  its  demands.  It  is,  I  believe,  no  merel}^  human 
ideal,  but  a  world-ideal,  and  the  world-purpose  is  quick 
to  own  those  who  cleave  to  it. 

Eeligion  has  been  described  by  Professor  Adler  as 
the  "homesickness  of  the  soul."  In  truth,  it  is  so. 
There  is  something  in  us  which  tells  us  that  we  do 
not  belong  to  a  realm  of  jarring  discords,  of  clashing 
interests,  of  selfish  triumphs.  We  have  another  coun- 
try. The  home  of  the  soul  is  —  I  know  not  where ;  it 
is  not  here.  We  belong  to  peace ;  we  belong  to  love; 
we  belong  to  all  that  is  covered  by  the  sacred  name 
of  the  Good.  Where  are  those  who  will  assert  these 
high  belongings,  and  by  their  surrender  to  sovereign 
principle,  by  the  sanctity  with  which  they  envelop 
every  human  being,  by  the  new  order  of  their  lives 
and  the  peace  of  their  spirits,  prove  that  even  here  on 


THE   SOCIAL   IDEAL.  141 

the  earth  they  are  connected  with  "  realms  that  know 
not  earthly  day  "  ? 

The  trouble  with  the  established  religion  is,  that 
it  has  ceased  to  stand  for  ideal  convictions.  The 
churches  are  friends  of  the  established  order.  Mo- 
rality has  become  a  tradition.  Little  is  now  said  to 
shame  men,  and  to  contradict  their  lives  and  the  or- 
der of  society  with  an  ideal  of  what  these  should  be. 
Who  will  once  more  lift  up  the  standard  of  absolute 
righteousness  ?  Who  will  strip  morality  of  its  con- 
ventional expressions,  and  rebuke  sins  that  now  go 
unrebuked,  and  make  demands  upon  men  that  now 
they  do  not  dream  of  ?  They  who  do,  who  see  the 
infinite  element  in  morality,  who  identify  religion  with 
justice,  and  make  the  law  of  the  Highest  the  law  for 
all  life,  —  they  will  be  the  heralds,  the  prophets,  of  the 
Religion  of  the  Future. 


VIII. 
THE  RIGHTS  OF  LABOR. 

NOTHING  is  plainer  at  the  present  day  than  that 
the  feelings  of  men  are  strongly  stirred  on  the 
Labor  question.  In  the  discussion  of  it  there  is  apt 
to  be  more  heat  than  light.  Those  who  do  not  range 
themselves  on  one  side  or  the  other  are  liable  to  be 
harshly  handled.  Men  who  cannot  subscribe  to  the 
orthodox  political  economy  are  berated  as  sentimental- 
ists. On  the  other  hand,  I  have  heard  it  urged  that 
the  time  is  gone  by  for  discussion  when  men  are  suf- 
fering, and  women  and  children  are  starving;  there 
must  be  action,  it  was  said,  —  and  action  was  identi- 
fied with  using  violence  against  capitalists  and  the 
civil  authorities  !  There  is  no  sane  man  who  does 
not  believe  in  action  in  regard  to  this  mf^tter ;  but 
the  question  is,  how  to  act,  —  with  reason  or  without 
it  ?  One  might  better  fold  his  arms  and  do  nothing, 
than  to  take  such  action  as  would  make  ten  starving 
men  where  there  is  now  one.  We  need  more  reason, 
more  consideration,  more  humanity  all  around  in  deal- 
ing with  the  great  problems  of  society.  We  should  try 
to  do  equal  justice  to  varying  points  of  view. 

I  hardly  know  of  a  more  striking  instance  of  the 
lack  of  this  ethical  spirit  than  the  claim  sometimes 
made  for  workingmen  that  they  are  the  producers  of 
all  wealth,  and  hence  that  the  wealth  of  the  commu- 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  LABOR.  143 

nity  belongs  to  them.  Aggressive  as  what  is  called 
"capital"  sometimes  is,  it  never  makes  so  sweeping  a 
claim  as  this  for  itself.  Let  me  illustrate.  Suppose 
a  workingman  has  saved  enough  to  pay  for  the  erec- 
tion of  a  modest  dwelling.  He  must  himself  continue 
to  work,  however,  and  therefore  he  hires  other  per- 
sons to  excavate  the  cellar  and  lay  the  foundations 
and  build  the  house.  Let  us  suppose  that  these  hired 
men  do  all  the  work,  —  that  not  a  shovelful  of  earth 
is  thrown  by  the  man  himself,  or  a  stone  or  brick 
laid  or  a  nail  driven  by  him.  The  hired  men  build  the 
house :  do  they  therefore  own  it  ?  I  cannot  imagine 
any  one  seriously  saying  so.  Yet  it  would  be  just  as 
true  to  say  so  as  to  say  that  because  workingmen 
have  built  the  railroads  of  the  country,  therefore  they 
own  them ;  or  because  they  have  done  all  the  physi- 
cal work  in  manufacturing  boots  and  shoes,  or  cotton 
cloths,  or  reaping-machines,  therefore  the  total  pro- 
duct is  their  rightful  property.  Any  one  who  will  re- 
flect for  a  moment  will  see  that  in  most  cases  there  are 
three  factors  in  business  enterprise  :  first,  the  labor ; 
second,  the  direction  and  superintendence  of  the  la- 
bor; and  third,  the  providing  of  the  materials  on  which 
the  labor  expends  itself,  and  perhaps  the  shelter  under 
which  the  labor  is  performed,  and  the  machinery  or 
tools  by  means  of  which  it  works.  All  these  factors 
may  be  united  in  the  same  hands.  Labor  may  super- 
intend itself,  and  find  the  market  for  its  own  products ; 
it  may  own  its  own  materials,  its  tools  or  machinery, 
and  the  necessary  shelter.  This  is  the  case  in  all 
strictly  co-operative  enterprises.  There  is  absolutely 
nothing  in  our  laws  or  customs,  or  in  the  accepted 
teachings  of  political  economy,  to  hinder  all  industry 


144  ETHICAL  RELIGIONv 

being  organized  in  this  manner,  —  thus  doing  away 
with  all  necessity  for  separate  employers  and  capi- 
talists. Under  such  circumstances  labor  would  have, 
and  would  be  entitled  to  have,  the  total  value  of  its 
product  to  itself.  Not  a  cent  of  profits  or  of  interest 
would  have  to  be  paid ;  all  that  is  ordinarily  called 
profits  and  interest  would  then  be  a  part  of  labor's 
reward.  Moreover,  since  profits,  interest,  and  wages 
would  in  such  a  case  all  go  to  the  same  persons,  such 
co-operative  enterprises  could  afford  to  work  for  lower 
profits  and  interest  than  can  business  enterprises  as 
ordinarily  conducted  at  present,  and  could  successful- 
ly compete  with  them.  Why,  then,  is  industry  not  so 
organized  at  present  ?  It  is  in  a  few  cases  :  why  not 
in  all  ?  The  answer  is  apparent.  The  hindrances  are 
not  external,  but  internal.  Labor  is  not  ordinarily 
able  to  superintend  itself,  and  to  find  the  market  for 
its  products.  It  does  not  ordinarily  own  the  mate- 
rials on  which  it  must  work,  nor  the  machinery  nor 
the  shelter  it  stands  in  need  of.  Some  one  else  must 
supply  these  desiderata.  Instead  of  one  person  or 
set  of  persons  doing  all,  two,  and  often  three,  sets  of 
persons  are  necessary.  The  workman,  the  employer, 
and  the  capitalist  often  join  hands  together  and  be- 
come partners  in  a  common  enterprise.  No  one  of 
them  would  be  employed  unless  he  were  needed  ;  and, 
in  simple  equity,  each  one  is  entitled  to  some  recom- 
pense for  his  services.  It  is  preposterous,  it  does 
violence  to  every  sentiment  of  right,  to  say  that  the 
whole  product  belongs  to  the  workmen,  when  the  em- 
ployer and  the  capitalist  are  equally  necessary  factors 
in  the  enterprise. 

The  rights  of  labor  do  not,  then,  involve  the  ordi- 


THE   RIGHTS   OF  LABOR.  145 

nary  socialistic  claim.  The  legitimate  demand  of  labor 
is  simply  that  it  shall  have  a  fair  share  of  what  it 
helps  to  produce.  I  do  not  say  a  fair  share  of  what 
it  produces,  for  it  is  entitled  to  all  it  produces  ;  l)ut 
in  the  complex  system  of  modern  industry  labor  is 
but  a  factor,  and  so  I  say  a  fair  share  of  what  it 
helps  to  produce.  When  a  shoemaker  makes  a  pair 
of  shoes  in  his  own  shop,  out  of  his  own  material 
and  with  his  own  tools,  he  is  entitled  to  the  whole 
value  of  the  shoes  ;  but  when  he  works  in  a  factory 
which  is  not  his,  with  leather  and  machinery  that 
some  one  else  has  provided,  it  would  he  simple  rob- 
bery for  him  to  claim  the  entire  value  of  the  pair  of 
shoes  for  himself.  A  fair  share  of  w^hat  the  work- 
ingmen  help  to  produce,  —  this  is  all  that  in  equity 
they  can  ask  for. 

But  do  they  not  have  a  fair  share  now  ?  I  do  not 
think  they  do  ;  and  here,  to  my  mind,  lies  the  real 
gist  of  the  labor  question.  T  am  far  from  wishing 
to  bring  any  railing  accusations  against  employers  or 
against  society.  Every  one  as  he  grows  in  years,  if 
he  gains  new  points  of  view  at  the  same  time,  must 
feel  increasingly  how  deep  and  wide  and  many-sided 
the  labor  question  is.  Almost  always  we  incline  to 
leave  some  factor  out  of  the  account,  not  because  w^e 
mean  to  do  so,  but  because  our  minds  are  not  able  to 
take  account  of  everything  at  once.  I  do  not  forget, 
for  example,  that  workingmen  cannot  have  more  out 
of  the  wealth  they  help  to  create  than  that  wealth 
amounts  to.  Workingmen  are  all  too  apt  to  think 
that  if  they  are  busy  at  work,  money  is  being  made 
somewhere,  and  probably  a  great  deal  of  it ;  they  are 
apt  to  think   that   their   employers,  simply  because 

10 


146  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

they  are  employers,  are  making  profits,  and  most  like- 
ly large  profits.  But  this  by  no  means  follows.  'No 
one  goes  into  business  for  himself  without  the  hope 
of  profits  ;  but  that  many  do  not  realize  this  hope  to 
any  great  extent  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  after  a 
time  they  go  out  of  business  no  better  oft",  and  per- 
haps worse  off,  than  when  they  went  in.  What  does 
the  large  per  cent  of  failures  in  the  business  world 
mean  but  that  in  these  cases  no  profits  at  all  have 
been  realized?  Ninety  per  cent  and  more  of  busi- 
ness enterprises,  it  is  said,  so  fail.  It  is  impossible 
to  speak  of  the  rights  of  labor  to  higher  remunera- 
tion in  a  business  that  is  barely  paying  its  way,  and 
may  at  any  time  be  obliged  to  suspend ;  the  enforced 
claim  to  higher  remuneration  in  such  a  case  might 
cause  a  suspension.  Two  years  ago  I  read  of  a  strike 
for  higher  wages  among  the  compositors  of  a  New 
Jersey  newspaper.  The  paper  was  not  a  success, 
and  the  proprietor  showed  his  books  to  the  working- 
men  ;  he  even  offered  to  give  the  paper  over  into  their 
hands  for  three  months,  they  to  receive  all  the  profits. 
They  refused  the  offer,  and  insisted  on  their  terms, 
and  the  second  day  the  paper  ceased  to  appear.^  It 
is  plain  that  the  compositors  had  no  idea  of  the  em- 
barrassments of  their  employer,  and  that  they  did 
as  much  injury  to  themselves  as  to  him  by  their  fool- 
ish conduct.  I  know  a  printer  in  Chicago  who  says 
he  w^ould  be  glad  to  make  as  much  as  his  foreman. 
It  is  difficult  to  get  statistics  bearing  on  this  point, 
but  the  Massachusetts  Labor  Bureau  Report  of  1883 
showed  that  while  some  business  enterprises  in  that 
State  were  making  large  profits,  thirty-two  per  cent 
A  See  The  Nation.  May  6,  1886. 


THE   RIGHTS   OF   LABOR.  147 

out  of  2440,  in  regard  to  which  information  was  ob- 
tained, made  none  at  all,  the  value  of  the  product 
being  only  sufficient  to  meet  the  running  expenses 
and  to  pay  the  current  rate  of  interest  on  the  capital 
invested.  Where  an  employer  is  making  no  profits, 
how  can  his  workmen  expect  to  have  higher  wages 
than  those  they  actually  receive  ?  It  is,  in  truth,  a 
superstition  to  suppose  that  wages  can  be  raised  to 
any  extent,  provided  the  workingmen  are  only  suffi- 
ciently united  and  determined  therefor.  Wages  must 
stop  considerably  short  of  the  value  of  the  articles 
produced,  —  that  is,  enough  short  to  give  fair  compen- 
sation to  the  employer  for  his  oversight  and  direction, 
and  to  the  capitalist  for  the  use  of  his  capital. 

But  because  there  are  limits  beyond  which  the  re- 
turns to  the  workingmen  cannot  go,  it  by  no  means 
follows  that  the  ordinary  returns  to  workingmen  at 
present  are  fair  and  just.  What  determines  the  rate 
of  wages  ?  At  first  sight  it  may  seem  as  if  it  were 
the  worth  of  the  service  rendered.  It  is  certainly  true 
that  as  a  rule  skilled  labor  is  more  highly  paid  than 
unskilled ;  but  if  we  go  a  little  deeper,  and  ask  the 
reason  why,  it  is  not  hard  to  discover  that  skilled 
labor  is  paid  more  highly,  not  because  it  is  skilled, 
but  because  it  is  rare.  In  what  branch  of  work  is 
more  mind  required  than  in  teaching  in  our  schools  ? 
What  service  ranks  higher  in  relation  to  the  welfare 
of  the  community  ?  Who  exercise  more  power  for 
good  or  for  ill  than  those  who  are  giving  the  first 
lessons  in  knowledge  and  virtue  to  our  children  and 
youth  ?  Why,  then,  are  our  teachers  so  poorly  re- 
warded ?  The  only  answer  is,  to  put  it  bluntly,  be- 
cause there  are  so  many  of  them,  —  at  least,  so  many 


148  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

ready  to  be  teachers.  And  why  are  teachers  who  are 
women  paid  less  than  teachers  who  are  men,  though 
they  may  be  just  as  capable,  though  they  may  even 
take  the  same  places  that  men  have  occupied  ?  Be- 
cause there  are  so  many  more  women  ready  to  be 
teachers  than  there  are  men.  In  other  words,  it  is 
not  the  worth  or  dignity  or  intellectual  character  of 
the  services  rendered,  but  the  number  of  those  who 
are  ready  to  render  them,  that  determines  their  price. 
In  technical  language,  it  is  supply  and  demand.  If 
skilled  labor,  through  trade-schools  or  the  incorpora- 
tion of  manual  training  into  the  public  schools,  should 
become  more  common  than  it  now  is,  there  is  hardly 
a  doubt,  other  conditions  remaining  the  same,  that  it 
would  command  less  high  wages  than  it  now  does.  I 
say  not  a  word  against  manual  training,  and  believe 
in  it  as  much  as  any  one  can ;  I  simply  note  what  I 
think  would  be  the  fact.  If  skilled  labor  should  be- 
come as  common  as  unskilled  labor  now  is,  its  wages 
would  be  just  as  low.  When  the  value  of  a  thing  is 
regulated  by  supply  and  demand,  in  proportion  as  it 
is  common  it  is  cheap. 

Now,  there  can  be  no  objection  to  this  so  far  as  the 
value  of  commodities  in  general  is  concerned.  Air 
is  so  free  now,  so  cheap,  that  it  costs  nothing  at  all : 
no  one  would  wish  it  to  be  different.  Water  is  al- 
most as  cheap  ;  and  commodities  in  general  —  shoes, 
hats,  clothing  of  every  description  —  can  hardly  be 
too  abundant  and  too  cheap.  But  when  we  come  to 
human  life,  every  one  with  a  heart  feels  as  by  instinct 
that  the  problem  changes.  All  these  commodities  ex- 
ist for  man  ;  air,  water,  and  the  very  earth  we  value 
according  to  their  power  to  serve  him,  and  to  con- 


THE   RIGHTS   OF   LABOR.  149 

tribute  to  his  happiness.  Other  things  exist  for  man, 
but  man  exists  for  himself ;  we  feel  it  to  be  a  kind 
of  degradation,  a  kind  of  profanation  of  the  highest 
and  holiest  we  know,  to  turn  liim  too  into  a  commod- 
ity, and  treat  him  as  we  would  a  garment  which  one 
wears  or  the  food  which  one  eats.  Yet  human  labor 
is  indistinguishable  from  human  life ;  it  is  the  means 
by  which  in  most  cases  life  is  supported.  That  labor 
shall  be  cheap  means  that  life  shall  be  miserable.  It 
means  less  food  and  poorer ;  it  means  scantier  cloth- 
ing ;  it  means  less  opportunities  for  the  mind ;  and 
if  not  necessarily,  yet  all  too  naturally,  it  means  in- 
creased temptation  to  dissipation,  to  vice  and  shame. 

We  want  commodities  cheap  for  man's  sake  ;  but 
for  whose  sake,  in  Heaven's  name,  will  you  make  man 
himself  cheap  ?  The  fact  is  that  man  is  never  made 
cheap  save  that  some  other  man,  who  ought  to  be  his 
brother,  may  get  rich  off  his  labor.  Man  is  never 
made  merchandise  of  save  that  somebody  may  make 
money  out  of  him.  Oh,  the  shame  of  it,  that  we  who 
are  brothers  to  one  another,  and  should  hold  one  an- 
other in  honor  and  seek  one  another's  good,  should  not 
hesitate  to  use  one  another  and  make  profit  out  of  one 
another,  and  gain  for  ourselves  by  making  our  brother 
lose,  —  yes,  perhaps  by  beating  hira  down  to  the  very 
dust !  For  this  is  what  the  law  of  suppl}'-  and  demand 
often  involves  when  men  apply  it  in  their  dealings 
with  one  another.  It  means  that  the  many  shall  be 
sacrificed  to  the  few.  It  means  that  the  few  capable 
of  leading  in  business  enterprises  shall  have  great  re- 
turns for  their  services,  —  shall  have  great  returns  sim- 
ply because  they  are  few,  —  and  that  the  many,  who 
perform  the  physical  labor  and  are  just  as  necessary 


150  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

as  the  few,  shall  have  small  and  often  pitiful  returns. 
It  means  that  the  few  shall  buy  out  the  many  ;  and 
because  the  many  are  many,  and  eacli  must  have  bread 
and  covering  for  his   back,  they  crowd  against  one 
another,  each  in  his  anxiety  making  a  lower  bid  than 
the  other, — and  the  result  is  that  those  who  make  the 
lowest  bid,  other  things  being  equal,  succeed  in  get- 
ting the  employment,  and  wages  as  a  rule  tend  to  the 
lowest  point  that  men  will  consent  to  live  upon.    The 
employers  gain  by  this  process,  and  perhaps  also  so- 
ciety, so  far  as  it  is  not  made  up  of  working-people ; 
but  the  laborers,  I  hold,  are  wronged.     It  is  this  sense 
of  wrong, that  gives  rise  to  socialistic  and  anarchistic 
agitation,  though  the  wrong  may  often  be  exaggerated 
and  so  give  plausible  occasion  on  the  other  side  to  a 
denial  that  any  wrongs  exist.     Any  one  is  wronged 
who  has  an  honest  service  to  render  to  society,  which 
society  needs,  and  is  yet   beaten  down  by  competi- 
tion to  take  returns  for  it  that  will  barely  hold  soul 
and  body  together.     Competition  is  good  within  lim- 
its.    There  may  be  services  that  are  held  too  high ; 
competition  is  good  to  bring  them  down  to  something 
normal  and  reasonable.    There  are  many  places  in  our 
industrial  system  where  not  less,  but  more,  competi- 
tion is  needed.     But  competition,  when  it  pauperizes 
people,  when   it   leads   men  to  struggle  against  one 
another  for  the  very  chance  to  live,  is  worse  than 
useless,  —  it  is  a  curse.     Competition  at  the  best  can 
never  be  more  than  a  maxim,  a  rule  of  expediency ; 
it  can  never  be  a  principle  in  a  true  political  econ- 
omy.    For  principles  we  must  look  to  morality,  to 
the  sentiments  of  justice  and  equity,  which  are  as 
rightfully  sovereign  in  industry  as  they  are  in  law, 


THE   RIGHTS   OF   LABOR.  151 

in   government,  in  religion,  in  every  department  of 
human  life. 

I  have  stated  my  conviction  that  labor  as  a  rule 
does  not  get  a  fair  share  of  the  wealth  it  helps  to 
produce ;  further,  why  this  must  be  the  case  so  long 
as  Nature  endows  mankind  more  lavishly  with  mus- 
cular than  with  mental  force,  and  those  with  the  supe- 
rior capacity  are  not  restrained  in  their  dealings  with 
workingmen  by  moral  principle.  I  hardly  need  cite 
statistics  and  facts.  Labor  is  slightly  better  off  in 
solid  and  successful  business  enterprises  than  it  is  in 
those  which  are  struggling  to  live  ;  but  it  is  not,  as 
a  rule,  better  off  to  anything  like  the  extent  to  w^hich 
the  enterprises  are  successful.  Successful  enterprises 
pay  the  market  rate  of  wages  and  salaries  about  as 
others  do  ;  and,  indeed,  any  other  course  would  be 
deemed  unbusiness-like.  To  pay  more  than  is  neces- 
sary to  get  a  certain  service  done  is  deemed  contrary 
to  business  principles.  The  employer  buys  the  cheap- 
est labor  (other  things  being  equal)  just  as  he  buys  the 
cheapest  raw  material  (provided  it  is  equally  good), 
and  just  as  he  borrows  capital  at  the  lowest  rates. 
An  industrial  system  of  this  sort  is  bound  to  create 
poverty  among  the  mass  of  men.  Mr.  Edward  Atkin- 
son has  recently  made  an  interesting  analysis  of  the 
cost  of  running  an  average  New  England  cotton-mill.^ 
His  object  is  to  show  how  slight  a  margin  of  profit 
enters  into  the  selling  price  of  each  yard  of  manufac- 
tured cloth.  The  profit,  he  says,  is  only  one  third  of 
a  cent  in  a  yard'  that  sells  for  6^  cents.  The  number 
of  working-people  in  the  mill  he  puts  at  950,  working 
on  the  average  for  $300  a  year  each.  The  largest 
1  The  Margin  of  Profits.    G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  1887. 


152  .-  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

item  in  the  expenses  of  the  inilly  next  to  that  of  the 
raw  cotton,  is  that  of  wages,  —  $285,000  in  all.  The 
profit  of  the  three  mill-owners,  over  and  above  all  ex- 
penses, insurance,  taxes,  and  a  liberal  allowance  for 
depreciation  of  the  mill,  he  estimates  at  $60,000,  or 
$20,000  each.  I  have  pondered  much  over  these  fig- 
ures. Out  of  this  $60,000  profits^  he  supposes  that 
$22,000,  or  a  little  over  a  third,  may  be  wasted  "  on 
fast  horses,  champagne,  fancy  farms,  and  that  sort 
of  thing."  A  good  part  of  the  remainder,  he  conjec- 
tures, will  be  turned  into  fresh  capital.  Who  will 
say  that  this  is  a  fair  division  of  the  product  of  the 
mill  among  those  who  joined  to  produce  it  ?  —  a  little 
less  than  a  quarter  as  much  for  the  three  owners  as 
for  all  the  950  men,  women,  and  children  employed 
put  together  !  Or,  to  put  it  differently,  one  owner  has 
sixty-six  times  as  much  as  one  of  his  employees  !  I 
advocate  no  socialism  ;  I  recognize  the  rights  of  the 
owners ;  I  admit  they  do  much  more  than  any  of 
their  employees,  and  are  entitled  to  a  much  greater 
reward ;  but  sixty-six  times  greater  —  it  is  impossi- 
ble !  It  ca.nnot  be  denied  that  the  owners  might  have 
made  their  employees  partners  in  their  prosperity,  as 
they  were  partners  in  the  labor  of  production,  with- 
out any  sensible  loss  to  themselves.  According  to 
Mr.  Atkinson's  supposition,  the  owners  could  scarcely 
spend  their  income  save  by  resorting  to  *-fast  horses, 
champagne,  fancy  farms,  and  that  sort  of  thing."  For 
my  part,  I  cannot  rid  myself  of  the  feeling  that  of 
a  good  part  of  this  $22,000  spent  in  so  questionable 

1  The  term  is  loosely  used  by  Mr.  Atkinson,  no  doubt;  techni- 
cally it  would  be  divided  into  interest  on  capital,  wages  of  super- 
intendence, and  "profits,"  strictly  so  called. 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  LABOR.  153 

a  manner  the  workingmen  and  women  and  children 
of  the  mill  were  despoiled ;  that  it  was  wrung  from 
them  simply  because  they  were  not  in  a  position  to 
demand  it.  I  cannot  rid  myself  of  the  feeling  that 
these  owners  were  fattening  on  the  toil  and  blood  of 
others  as  effectually  as  if  they  had  been  their  slaves. 
"It  was  written  in  the  bond,"  do  you  say  ?  Oh,  yes  ! 
the  lives  and  liberties  of  slaves  have  been  signed 
away  *'in  the  bond."  But  such  bonds  do  not  stand; 
before  the  white  bar  of  justice  they  have  not  the 
weight  of  the  paper  they  are  written  on,  or  of  the 
cubic  inches  of  air  consumed  in  consenting  to  them. 
Free  contract  ?  There  is  no  free  contract  when  on 
the  one  side  is  ability  to  live  at  one's  leisure,  and 
on  the  other  no  bread  in  the  house  unless  work  is 
instantly  obtained. 

Speaking  in  a  large  way,  and  making  full  allowance 
for  the  business  enterprises  that  fail  or  that  barely 
make  their  way,  it  is  doubtful  if  labor  has  its  rights 
in  this  country  or  in  any  other.  Wherever  self-interest 
has  had  its  way  unhindered  by  higher  scruples,  labor 
has  almost  always  been  imposed  upon.  In  most  ages  of 
the  world  labor  has  been  enslaved  and  virtually  denied 
to  have  any  rights  which  its  owner  was  bound  to  re- 
spect. Where  not  literally  enslaved  it  has  been  treated 
as  an  attachment  to  the  soil,  and  sold  as  if  a  part  of 
it.  And  though  the  workingman  in  modern  civilized 
countries  is  rarely  either  a  slave  or  a  serf,  he  is  at  the 
mercy  of  the  market,  and  may  sometimes  be  purchased 
as  cheaply  as  in  the  days  of  slavery  or  serfdom,  if 
not  more  so.  The  abolition  of  slavery,  it  is  said,  is  no 
longer  regretted  at  the  South  ;  and  a  remark  made  to 
me  not  long  ago  by  a  Southern  gentleman  suggests  a 


154  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

reason  why.  He  said  in  substance  that  the  free  negro 
was,  after  all,  cheaper  than  the  slave,  since  formerly 
the  master  was  obliged  to  care  for  his  slave  all  the 
year  round,  and  to  provide  food  and  shelter  for  him  in 
old  age,  while  now  wages  have  only  to  be  paid  to  the 
negro  while  he  is  at  work,  and  during  slack  times  or 
in  old  age  he  may  be  left  to  his  own  resources. 

How  little  do  we  seem  sometimes  to  have  advanced 
on  the  days  of  Homer,  one  thousand  years  before 
Christ,  when  the  type  of  the  abjectest  misery  was  not 
the  slave,  but  the  free  laborer  !  ^  We  have  a  better 
thought  of  the  laborer  now,  but  we  have  not  created 
for  him  a  much  better  condition;  and  it  is  the  contrast 
between  our  thoughts  —  which  are  coming  to  be  his 
thoughts  too  —  and  his  condition  wliich  makes  "  the 
rub,"  the  sore  and  grievous  problem  of  the  present 
time.  The  laborer  feels  himself  a  man,  but  he  is  still 
treated  like  a  thing,  a  commodity.  He  believes  in 
brotherhood,  or  at  least  he  hears  of  it ;  but  he  fails  to 
experience  it.  The  only  brotherhood  he  knows  any- 
thing of  is  that  of  the  "  Union,"  and  the  only  thing 
beyond  that  which  is  apt  to  seem  practicable  to  him 
is  the  brotherhood  of  all  workers  against  the  forces 
arrayed  to  keep  them  down.^ 

What  can  be  done  ?  First,  we  can  hold  fast  to  our 
thoughts  as  to  how  labor  should  be  treated.  This  of 
itself  is  a  great  thing,  —  not  to  succumb,  not  to  give 

1  Cf.  Odyssey,  xi.  489,  and  Gladstone's  comment  thereon  in 
"  Studies  on  Homer,"  iii.  74. 

2  Cf.  Adam  Smith  (Wealth  of  Nations,  ii.  70) :  "Masters  are 
always  and  everywhere  in  a  sort  of  tacit,  but  constant  and  uni- 
form, combination  not  to  raise  the  wages  of  labor  above  their 
actual  rate." 


THE   RIGHTS   OF   LABOR.  155 

up  our  ideal,  because  the  facts  are  the  other  way.  It 
is  a  great  temptation  to  settle  down  to  the  idea  that 
as  things  are  and  have  been  so  they  must  be.  It  in- 
volves a  strain,  and  is  a  positive  virtue,  to  hold  fast 
to  an  ideal  when  the  facts  contradict  it.  There  is 
a  fatality  about  our  thoughts.  If  we  think  things 
cannot  be  different  from  what  they  are,  we  but  add  so 
much  to  the  dead  inertia  of  the  world,  which  keeps 
them  as  they  are  ;  while  if  we  will  not  succumb,  we 
may  be  part  of  the  very  forces  that  will  help  to  make 
things  different.  Let  us  keep  our  faith ;  let  us  keep 
our  discontent  and  spread  it  in  the  community ;  let 
us  never  cease  to  ask  that  ethics  become  a  principle 
in  business  life,  that  the  Golden  Eule  be  made  the 
rule  of  industry,  till  the  common  remark  that  "busi- 
ness is  business,"  when  applied  to  the  remuneration 
of  human  labor,  shall  be  turned  into  a  reproach  and 
a  shame  to  those  who  use  it. 

Secondly,  let  us  make  our  thoughts  as  clear  as  pos- 
sible as  to  what  constitutes  a  fair  return  to  labor  for 
its  services  in  the  work  of  production.  It  is  im- 
possible to  speak  of  what  are  just  and  unjust  wages 
in  terms  of  money;  the  purchasing  power  of  money 
changes  according  as  the  cost  of  producing  commod- 
ities becomes  greater  or  less.  AVhat  we  have  a  right 
to  ask  for  the  workingman,  who  year  after  year  ren- 
ders service  to  society,  is  that  he  shall  have  enough 
in  return  to  enable  him  (1)  to  run  a  fair  chance  of  liv- 
ing out  the  average  term  of  human  life ;  (2)  to  have 
a  family  of  moderate  size ;  (3)  to  let  his  children  go  to 
school  till  they  are  at  least  fifteen  years  of  age  ;  (4)  to 
let  his  wife  attend  to  the  duties  of  a  mother  and  a 
housekeeper ;  (o)  with  reasonable  economy  to  lay  aside 


156  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

something  for  his  support  in  old  age.  These  are  the 
wages,  whatever  their  money  equivalent  may  be,  which 
every  one  who  works  with  his  hands  —  I  care  not  how 
commonplace  and  rude  his  work  may  be,  so  that  it 
be  necessary  work  to  society  —  should  receive.  There 
is  not  a  day -laborer  who  works  on  our  streets  who 
ought  not  to  have  so  much.  I  advocate  nothing  at 
all  for  those  who  will  not  work  —  not  even  charity ; 
though  for  those  who  cannot  work  —  for  those  whose 
minds  or  whose  bodies  are  too  feeble  —  I  ask  the  ten- 
derest  consideration  and  the  amplest  charity.  But  for 
those  who  can  and  who  do  work,  such  remuneration 
as  I  have  described  above  I  ask  for  as  simple  justice. 
Competition  may  reduce  wages  below  this  point,  — 
nay,  it  does.  There  are  plenty  of  skilled  as  well  as 
unskilled  laborers  who  do  not  get  such  remuneration. 
Employers,  whether  private  or  public,  allow  them  to 
bid  against  one  another,  and,  to  the  end  of  putting 
money  into  their  own  pockets  or  of  reducing  taxation, 
allow  them  to  work  on  terms  that  tend  to  cut  short 
their  lives,  to  drive  their  children  of  tender  years  into 
the  factory  or  the  street,  to  force  their  very  wives  to 
work  with  them  or  in  competition  with  them,  and 
to  bring  all  sometime  or  other  to  misery,  to  want, 
and  perhaps  the  poor-house.  It  is  all  a  monster  ini- 
quity. Below  the  point  I  have  described,  competition 
should  never  be  allowed  to  determine  the  wages  of 
the  laborer. 

Thirdly,  we  can  do  something  by  encouraging  every 
honest  attempt  of  labor  to  get  at  least  this  minimum 
of  remuneration  for  itself.  The  Unions  that  work- 
ingmen  form  and  the  "strikes"  they  enter  upon  are 
not  useless.     The  Unions  may  have  many  unjust  and 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  LABOR.  157 

foolish  rules,  their  members  may  sometimes  overreach 
and  go  on  false  principles  in  entering  upon  "  strikes." 
To  demand  equal  wages  for  all  alike,  whatever  their 
degree  of  skill  and  competence,  is  plainly  unjust ;  to 
use  violence  against  those  who  take  their  places  when 
they  leave  work  is  criminal  ;  to  "strike"  against  an 
employer  who  is  barely  making  his  way,  or  to  take 
advantage  of  his  necessities,  is  as  deserving  of  cen- 
sure as  for  the  employer  to  treat  in  a  similar  way  his 
men.  But  where  a  business  is  successful,  where  divi- 
dends and  profits  are  large,  there,  I  conceive,  it  is 
both  allowable  and  just  that  workingmen  should  share 
in  the  prosperity  which  they  help  to  create,  and  the 
public  should  encourage  them  in  every  effort  to  reach 
at  least  that  minimum  of  compensation  which  I  have 
described. 

Fourthly,  if  we  are  in  business  ourselves,  the  mat- 
ter comes  home  to  us  in  a  peculiar  way.  I  am  well 
aware  that  a  man  starting  in  business  cannot  always 
do  as  his  heart  prompts.  He  starts  in  a  competitive 
field.  There  may  be  employers  ready  to  undersell 
him  and  drive  him  out  of  the  market.  He  has  to 
make  himself  a  foothold  in  the  midst  of  a  stream  that 
would  be  glad  to  carry  him  away.  He  is  perhaps 
thence  obliged  to  begin  by  paying  the  market  rate  of 
wages  to  his  workmen  ;  he  has  to  appear  to  stand  in 
a  purely  commercial  relation  to  his  men.  Meanwhile, 
however,  the  higher  thoughts  may  truly  dwell  in  him. 
He  may  still  cherish  the  wish  to  establish  a  real 
brotherhood  with  his  employees,  to  run  the  race  not 
against  them  but  with  them,  to  treat  them  as  his 
co-workers  and  his  partners  ;  and  gradually,  as  his 
enterprise  succeeds,  he  may  carry  his  thoughts  into 


158  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

effect,  —  not  with  professions,  but  rather  cautiously  ; 
not  disappointed  because  his  men  do  not  at  once  be- 
lieve in  him,  but  determined  by  perseverance  and 
evident  good-will  to  make  them  believe  in  him.  In 
technical  language,  he  may  either  raise  their  wages, 
or  allowing  their  nominal  wages  to  remain  the  same, 
may  make  them  share  in  his  profits.  This  to  my  mind 
would  be,  so  far  as  present  circumstances  ordinarily 
allow,  the  ideal  form  of  industry.  At  any  rate,  it 
would  be  ethics  carried  into  business  life  ;  it  would 
be  the  Golden  Eule  entering  a  realm  where  it  is  ordi- 
narily thought  to  be  inapplicable.  Love  is  thought  to 
be  a  dream ;  it  is,  in  fact,  the  only  thing  that  is  prac- 
tical. It  so  truly  belongs  to  the  world  that  there  is 
no  harmony  or  security,  or  even  peace,  without  it. 


IX. 

PERSONAL  MORALITY. 


THERE  is  no  more  wonderful  or  more  moving 
thought  than  that  of  personal  responsibility. 
It  seems  to  go  straight  to  the  centre  of  our  being, 
which  is  not  the  mind  or  the  conscience  or  the  heart, 
but  the  will.  A  voice  seems  to  say :  "  To  thee, 
individually,  0  Man,  is  given  a  task.  Thou  art  not 
one  of  a  mass  merely ;  thou  countest  by  thyself. 
Thou  art  what  no  one  else  in  the  world  is.  Thou 
hast  a  duty  that  no  one  else  in  the  world  can  do. 
Sacred  art  thou  in  the  plan  of  the  world.  Eevere 
thyself,  then,  and  fill  out  thy  arc  of  the  great  circle 
of  duty.  Without  thee  that  circle  must  remain  for- 
ever incomplete  ! " 

The  first  lesson  of  personal  ethics  is  self-reverence. 
Morality  is  sometimes  resolved  into  sympathy  and 
regard  for  others.  But  there  is  something  due  our- 
selves as  truly  as  to  father  or  mother  or  wife  or 
sister  or  friend;  the  same  reason  that  exists  for  re- 
specting them  exists  for  respecting  ourselves.  I  want 
no  one  to  show  signs  of  respect  to  me  who  does 
not  stand  on  his  own  ground,  and  in  his  bearing  and 
demeanor  show  that  he  has  an  equal  sense  of  what 
is  due  himself.     I  cannot  conceive  anything  more 


160  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

lamentable  than  that  one  should  think  that  obliga- 
tion first  arises  when  we  consider  the  claims  of  others, 
and  that  in  his  personal  and  private  life  he  may  do 
this  or  that,  and  just  as  he  pleases,  because  it  con- 
cerns himself  alone.  He  who  questions  that  there  is 
a  duty  to  himself  is  liable  to  question,  sooner  or  later, 
whether  there  be  any  real  duty  to  others ;  for  others 
are  only  human  beings  like  himself,  and  if  he  feels 
no  obligation  to  himself,  why  should  he  to  them  ? 
The  truth  is,  all  are  sacred,  —  others  and  himself. 
To  each  one  is  given  a  task, —  to  each  one  particu- 
larly and  individually,  as  if  no  one  else  were  in  ex- 
istence ;  and  the  task  must,  to  a  certain  extent,  be 
accomplished  by  each  one  separately  and  alone. 

What  are  the  things  for  which  we  are  thus  person- 
ally responsible;  what  are  the  things  over  which 
we  ourselves  have  control  ?  First,  certainly,  our  pri- 
vate habits.  These  may  be  known  by  no  one  but 
ourselves,  yet  we  are  as  responsible  for  them  as  if 
they  were  known  to  all  the  world.  We  are  respon- 
sible, not  merely  because  of  their  effect  upon  others, 
but  because  of  their  effect  upon  ourselves,  —  because 
we  ought  to  have  pure  habits,  since  these  alone  are 
worthy  of  human  beings.  Every  one  should  be  watch- 
ful of  himself,  should  take  an  honest  pride  in  ruling 
his  own  impulses,  in  avoiding  all  temptations  that 
he  knows  may  be  too  strong  for  him,  in  keeping  his 
body  as  well  as  his  soul  —  what  is  unseen  and  what 
is  seen  —  sweet  and  clean.  Tell  me,  if  it  w^ere  pos- 
sible, what  a  man's  private  and  most  solitary  habits 
are,  and  I  will  tell  you  whether  he  really  respects  him- 
self, —  whether  whatever  decency  and  respectability 
he  has  are  for  show  or  are  a  part  of  his  very  fibre 


PERSONAL  MORALITY.  161 

and  make-up  as  a  man.  I  have  read  of  some  one 
who,  when  alone,  sat  down  to  dinner  with  the  same 
regard  for  form  and  ceremony  as  if  he  were  enter- 
taining a  company  of  friends.  His  instinct,  at  least, 
was  right;  for  whatever  measure  of  form  and  cere- 
mony is  proper  on  such  an  occasion  is  so  because 
human  beings  sit  down  to  the  table,  and  not  because 
of  their  number.  All  our  private  habits  should  re- 
veal our  sense  of  what  is  due  to  the  humanity  in  us. 
Therefore  we  should  not  drink  to  excess  or  eat  to 
excess,  for  this  is  brutish ;  therefore  we  should  con- 
trol all  our  appetites,  —  otherwise  there  is  the  abdi- 
cation of  the  reason,  which  makes  the  truly  human 
part  of  us ;  therefore  the  body  should  be  treated 
with  reverence,  because  it  is  the  abode  and  taberna- 
cle of  our  humanity ;  therefore  neglect  of  the  person 
and  slovenliness  are  disgusting,  because  they  reveal 
the  lack  of  a  sense  of  what  is  becoming  to  a  man. 
By  every  unchaste  act,  by  every  surrender  of  reason 
to  passion,  by  all  excess  and  by  all  meanness  in  our 
manner  of  life,  by  neglect  of  the  body  as  well  as 
neglect  of  the  soul,  the  fair  humanity  that  is  in  us 
and  ought  to  be  reflected  in  our  person  and  behavior 
is  dishonored  ;  we  sink  to  the  level  of  the  animal 
instead  of  rising  to  the  stature  of  the  man. 

Another  field  wherein  we  alone  have  control,  is 
that  of  our  personal  aims  in  life.  An  aim  is  nowise 
set  save  by  the  person  whose  aim  it  is.  An  aim  is 
simply  the  direction  of  our  own  will.  A  good  aim 
cannot  be  given  to  a  man  save  by  himself.  He  may 
hear  of  it,  but  it  is  not  his  own  till  he  makes  it  so. 
Our  outward  acts  may  be  constrained,  they  may  not 
express  us ;  but  the  will  is  the  centre  and  citadel  of 

11 


162  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

our  personality,  and  no  power  in  heaven  or  in  earth 
is  master  there  but  ourselves.  With  this  magnificent 
power  we  can  choose  higher  or  lower  aims,  we  can 
direct  the  channel  of  our  life  in  this  of  that  direction  ; 
or,  if  we  will,  we  can  refuse  to  aim  at  anything  at 
all,  and  simply  drift,  and  become  waifs  and  ignoble 
wanderers  on  the  earth.  Now,  any  aim  is  better  than 
none ;  but  the  highest  aim  is  alone  worthy  of  a  man. 
What  is  the  highest  aim  ?  I  will  venture  to  reply 
that  it  is  to  contribute  to  an  ideal  order  of  human 
life.  The  other  answers  commonly  given  are  either 
ignoble  or  unreal  to  us.  To  save  one's  soul,  —  who  of 
us  can  consider  that  the  noblest  aim  we  can  have  ? 
To  glorify  God  and  enjoy  him  forever, — how  far 
away  and  unreal  and  unpractical  does  that  seem  to 
us !  To  seek  the  kingdom  of  God,  —  ah  !  but  what 
is  the  kingdom  of  God  ?  To  do  the  will  of  God,  — 
but  who  will  tell  us  what  the  will  of  God  means  ? 
for  that  sanction  has,  in  the  course  of  man's  religious 
history,  covered  almost  every  conceivable  aim  of  man, 
high  and  low,  devilish  and  divine.  But  to  contribute 
to  an  ideal  order  of  human  life  seems  to  me  an  aim 
that  man  can  lay  hold  of;  and  it  is  an  exalted  aim. 
For  we  love  this  human  life  of  ours,  and  wish  to  see 
it  lifted  to  its  ideal.  We  love  it  most  truly,  not  for 
what  it  is,  but  for  what  it  may  be.  We  are  in  love 
with  its  ideal.  The  aim  I  have  proposed  is  legitimate 
for  the  merchant,  for  the  lawyer,  for  the  physician,  for 
the  mother,  for  the  child,  for  the  workingman.  One 
may  accomplish  little,  yet  he  can  have  the  aim ;  and 
the  aim  is  that  for  which  alone  we  are  responsible, 
and  may  give  significance  to  our  smallest  actions  and 
a  priceless  value  even  to  our  ineffectual  strivings. 


PERSONAL   MORALITY.  163 

Once  in  a  while  we  need  to  turn  back  on  these 
busy  lives  of  ours,  and  ask  how  far  this  aim  is  really 
regulative  of  them.  Are  the  actions  we  are  doing, 
the  sort  of  lives  we  are  leading,  tending  toward  an 
ideal  form  of  human  life ;  are  they  such  as,  if  they 
were  general  in  the  community,  would  bring  that 
ideal  form  of  life  nearer  to  the  earth  ?  Let  the  mer- 
chant ask  himself  what  are  the  customs,  the  maxims 
of  his  trade;  and  if  they  are  not  what  they  should 
be,  is  he  by  consenting  to  them  helping  to  perpetuate 
them,  or  is  he  striving  to  change  them  ?  Let  the 
lawyer  and  the  physician  ask  themselves  as  to  the 
morality  of  their  professions,  and  whether  the  su- 
preme aim  is  keeping  them  from  aught  that  is  dis- 
honorable, and  constraining  them  to  seek  to  elevate 
the  tone  and  practice  of  their  professions  in  every 
possible  way.  Let  the  mother  ask  herself,  "  Am  I 
training  my  child  so  that  it  will  be  a  new  factor  in 
the  world,  or  merely  a  perpetuator  of  old-time  preju- 
dices and  hatreds  and  shams  ?  "  Let  the  child  too 
have  its  solemn  hour,  when  it  shall  nurse  its  grow- 
ing soul  on  deeds  of  heroism  and  faithfulness,  and 
ask  itself  whether  it  too  could  venture  for  an  idea, 
and  be  patient  under  adversity  and  the  world's  con- 
tempt. Let  the  workingman  ask  himself,  "What  is 
my  motive ;  and  would  it  if  it  were  general  tend  to 
an  ideal  form  of  life  ?  Do  I  work  merely  for  hire, 
or  do  I  take  pride  in  a  piece  of  honest,  thorough 
work  ?  In  my  demand  for  changes,  perhaps  revolu- 
tions, in  the  industrial  world,  am  I  actuated  by  the 
spirit  of  malice  and  revenge  or  by  the  simple  thought 
of  justice  ?  '^  Yes,  even  the  unemployed  workingman 
may  feel  the  pressure  of  that  supreme  aim  upon  him, 


164  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

and  in  his  sorest  misfortune  may  will  to  commit  no 
crime,  and  though  he  be  insulted,  not  to  insult  again, 
and  to  bear  even  to  the  death  rather  than  do  a  wrong 
to  others.  Everywhere  does  this  supreme  aim  hold 
good;  everywhere  may  it  take  from  the  pride  of 
those  who  are  great,  and  give  dignity  to  those  who 
are  humble.  How  quickly  does  it  recall  us  from  those 
aims  in  which  it  is  so  easy  to  settle  down !  To  earn 
a  comfortable  living,  and  provide  for  wife  and  chil- 
dren,—  how  many  seem  to  have  this  practically  as 
their  aim  in  life!  But  there  is  nothing  peculiarly 
human  about  this ;  beavers  and  the  whole  tribe  of 
animals  do  the  same.  Man  has  intelligence,  has  im- 
agination, has  a  moral  nature,  has  dreams  of  uni- 
versal justice  ;  yet  sometimes  he  forgets  the  dignity 
and  glory  that  belong  to  him,  turns  his  back  on  his 
dreams,  perverts  his  conscience,  loses  his  imagination, 
and  uses  his  godlike  intelligence  only  so  far  as  to 
provide  for  himself  a  comfortable  living,  perhaps  in 
his  selfishness  and  hardness  leaving  even  wife  and 
children  out.  O  Friend,  lift  up  thy  thoughts  !  think 
of  what  thou  art  called  to  be !  Light  up  thy  heart, 
thy  imagination,  and  thy  life  with  a  great  aim  !  Do 
it,  because  with  all  thy  hoarding  and  saving  thou  art 
wasting  thyself,  becoming  little  while  thou  shouldst 
be  becoming  great,  growing  old  while  thou  shouldst 
be  keeping  ever  young,  turning  life  into  a  game  of 
profit  and  loss  while  it  should  be  an  opportunity  for 
all  noble  action  and  the  service  of  all  good  causes  ! 

The  old  religion  contains  a  subtle  word,  —  "  Thou 
must  be  born  again."  Strange  and  unmeaning  to  us 
as  is  the  theological  dogma  that  has  been  based  upon 
it,  it  hides  a  vital  truth.     'T  is  not  the  mending  of 


PERSONAL  MORALITY.  165 

our  actions  that  is  first  needed ;  't  is  not  the  forming 
of  this  or  that  habit;  'tis  not  any  outward  change.  It 
is  the  renovation  of  the  fountains  of  our  life;  it  is 
the  making  victorious  a  new  aim  in  life ;  it  is  the 
changing  our  thoughts  and  experiencing  the  trans- 
forming power  of  a  new  purpose.  This  does  not  alone 
help  us  in  one  particular,  but  in  all :  it  involves  an 
advance  along  the  whole  line  of  duty.  And  the  dif- 
ference from  the  old  religion  is  simply,  that,  while  it 
seems  to  say  that  such  a  purpose  must  come  from 
God,  we  say  that  it  must  be  formed  by  ourselves. 
We  do  not  fall  on  our  knees  and  pray :  we  arise,  and 
summon  our  energies,  and  resolve.  And  though  the 
old  nature  in  us  may  not  yield  at  once,  though  old 
faults  may  persist  and  old  habits  be  stubborn,  yet  we 
can  gradually  win  the  victory  over  them  ;  and  our 
connection  with  that  Supreme  Power  which  upholds 
the  world  and  supports  the  human  soul,  is  simply  in 
the  belief  that  he  is  behind  us  and  beneath  us  and 
above  us,  and  pours  his  all-mightiness  into  us,  so  that 
we  can  ourselves  do  all  that  in  our  nature  we  are 
summoned  to  do. 

Not  only  the  supreme  dominant  aim  of  our  lives, 
but  our  motives  in  all  our  actions,  are  under  our  con- 
trol ;  and  for  purifying  them  we  are  responsible.  It 
is  here  that  the  ethics  based  entirely  on  the  results 
of  our  actions  altogether  fails.  An  action  may  have 
exactly  the  same  results,  yet  at  one  time  have  moral 
worth  and  at  another  have  none.  A  dollar  given  to  a 
poor  man  w^ill  go  just  so  far,  provide  so  much  bread, 
whether  given  to  rid  one's  self  of  his  presence  or  out 
of  love  for  the  man.  But  an  act  of  the  former  sort 
is  not  a  moral  act  at  all.     It  is  wonderful  how  com- 


166  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

pletely  our  moral  value  is  hidden  from  all  the  world 
but  ourselves,  and  yet  how  in  importance  it  tran- 
scends all  else  we  can  think  of.  I  would  not  ignore 
the  question  of  results  in  the  theory  of  ethics.  Our 
acts  must  not  only  be  moral,  —  they  must  be  right, 
they  must  correspond  with  an  objective  standard ; 
and  with  the  determination  of  that,  the  results  of  our 
actions  have  a  great  deal  to  do.  An  action  is  right 
which  tends  to  the  good  of  humanity,  the  results  of 
which  are  actually  beneficial  to  humanity.  A  moral 
action  is  one  that,  in  addition,  aims  at  the  good  of  hu- 
manity. It  is  not  enough  to  be  perfectly  righteous,  — 
we  must  mea7i  to  be  righteous  ;  and  in  our  so  mean- 
ing, wanting,  purposing,  our  whole  moral  worth  con- 
sists. The  real  life  of  man  is  not  the  seen,  but  the 
unseen  one ;  what  we  see  are  but  effects,  —  the  causes 
are  hidden  away.  The  world  is  satisfied  with  a  cer- 
tain decorousness,  and  we  ourselves  all  too  easily  in- 
cline to  take  the  world's  standard  ;  but  in  our  graver 
moments  we  know  what  a  surface  thing  it  is,  and  that 
our  unclean  thoughts,  our  jealousies,  our  envies  and 
spites,  and  all  our  littlenesses  and  uncharitablenesses, 
though  no  one  else  knows  of  them,  are  the  things 
that  defile  us.  Oh  for  a  clean  heart !  Oh  to  be  holy 
within  !  —  to  be  as  pure  in  our  own  eyes  as  we  would 
be  in  the  eyes  of  the  world  without !  Oh  to  ban- 
ish all  selfishness,  and  to  look  on  others  only  with 
love  !  —  so  that  if  we  chide  or  are  severe  toward 
them  it  shall  not  be  in  anger ;  so  that  if  they  wrong 
us  we  shall  not  hate  them,  and  if  we  are  injured, 
we  shall  not  injure  again.  The  highest  care,  after 
all,  of  each  one  should  be  for  himself,  and  for  that 
which  is  most  personal  to  himself.     There,  in  that 


PERSONAL   MORALITY.  167 

inner  realm,  no  one  else  can  help  him.  Each  morning, 
I  conceive,  a  man  might  well  arise,  and  say,  "  This 
day  I  welcome  to  my  heart  all  good  thoughts,  and 
will  that  they  should  prompt  and  guide  all  my  ac- 
tion. I  banish  hate,  I  banish  spite,  I  banish  all  low 
cunning  and  greed ;  and  I  will  not  let  a  word  escape 
my  lips,  or  an  act  be  done,  that  truth  and  honor  and 
love  cannot  sanction ! "  It  is  easier,  I  know,  to  con- 
trol our  actions  than  our  motives.  It  takes  great 
watchfulness,  it  may  involve  a  long  discipline,  and 
mean  many  a  struggle  to  be  able  to  banish  an  un- 
worthy thought  as  soon  as  it  appears,  to  check  an 
unholy  impulse  as  soon  as  it  arises.  It  implies  that 
we  have  ourselves  well  in  hand,  that  the  will  is  strong. 
Ah  !  but  this  is  our  task,  this  is  that  to  which  we  are 
called.  There  were  no  honor  in  easy  victories.  To 
contend  against  odds,  to  hold  to  the  fight  after  defeat 
once  and  twice, — yes,  though  the  body  js  weak  and 
the  heart  is  faint,  to  keep  the  purpose  strong,  — there 
is  glory  in  that ;  and  into  the  secrets  of  such  a  strife 
the  angels  might  well  look  with  wonder  and  awe. 
'T  was  Hesiod  of  old  who  said  that  before  the  temple 
of  virtue  the  immortal  gods  had  placed  labor,  and  the 
way  to  it  was  long  and  steep.  'T  is  hard  to  know, 
indeed,  what  good  thing  in  life  is  to  be  had  for  the 
asking.  The  whole  significance  of  our  being  is  that 
we  are  madfe  imperfect,  and  called  to  be  perfect. 

"  And,  nil,  if  Nature  sinks,  as  oft  she  may, 
*Neath  long-lived  pressure  of  obscure  distress, 
Still  to  he  strenuous  for  the  bright  reward, 
Still  in  the  soul  to  admit  of  no  decay, 
Brook  no  continuance  of  weak-mindedness,  — 
Great  is  the  glory,  for  the  strife  is  hard." 


168  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

It  is  wonderful  how  every  great  religious  move- 
ment in  the  past  has  been  marked  by  a  new  sense 
of  the  need  of  personal  righteousness.  ^T  was  thus 
when  real  religion  arose  among  the  ancient  Hebrews, 
and  a  cry  went  forth  from  the  prophetic  lips,  "  Create 
in  me  a  clean  heart,  and  renew  a  right  spirit  within 
me!  "  ^Twas  so  when  Jesus  called  for  a  deeper  right- 
eousness than  even  the  most  religious  of  his  own  day 
practised.  ^T  was  so  when  Luther  threw  off  the  bond- 
age of  dead  works,  and  wrote  and  spoke  to  the  con- 
science, and  said  that  an  act  in  itself  good  becomes 
sinful  if  its  motive  is  sinful.  If  I  ever  have  a  doubt 
of  the  possibility  of  a  religion  arising  out  of  Liberal- 
ism to-day,  it  is  because  Liberalism  speaks  more  of 
the  rights  of  men  than  of  their  duties  ;  because  it 
talks  more  of  the  reform  of  society  than  of  the  re- 
form of  ourselves  ;  because  its  ideal  is  philanthropy 
rather  than  justice  ;  because  it  forgets  that  ^-  society 
gains  nothing,"  as  Emerson  says,  "  while  a  man  not 
himself  renovated  attempts  to  renovate  things  about 
him,"  or,  as  John  C.  Learned  says,  that  those  '^  who 
are  in  the  w^rong  cannot  cure  evils."  Let  us  pu- 
rify ourselves,  let  us  leave  the  world's  standards  be- 
hind us,  and  ask  what  manner  of  men  we  ourselves 
are ;  and  if  we  find  ourselves  unholy,  unchaste,  pas- 
sionate, envious,  ready  to  take  advantage,  petty  in 
spirit  and  narrow  in  sympathy,  oh,  let  us  leave 
doctoring  the  ills  of  the  world,  and  first  cure  our- 
selves ! 

But  life  is  not  all  in  doing.  Duty  is  not  all  in 
striving  and  battling,  —  it  is  sometimes  in  waiting, 
in  enduring,  in  bearing  what  we  cannot  remove.  Per- 
haps our  sharpest  battles  are  with  our  impatience,  and 


PERSONAL  MOKALITY.  169 

with  what  seems  a  cruel  fate  that  assigns  us  burdens 
heavier  than  we  can  bear.  Sympathy  often  we  cannot 
receive  ;  often,  we  cannot  tell  our  griefs.  The  trage- 
dies of  our  life  are  in  secret,  and  this  is  what  makes 
them  tragedies. 

I  allow  myself  to  believe,  however,  that  nothing  is 
given  us  in  life  greater  than  we  can  bear.  It  may 
seem  as  if  the  adversity  were  too  sore,  but  we  can 
endure  it.  We  cannot  always  control  our  bodily 
health,  but  we  can  our  spirits.  We  can  bear  the 
death  of  friends ;  we  can  bear  the  ingratitude  of 
friends,  or  their  unfaithfulness ;  we  can  bear  to  have 
our  hopes  defeated;  we  can  bear  to  have  light  and  joy 
vanish  out  of  our  skies,  —  bear  it  without  bitterness, 
bear  it  with  magnanimity.  The  deep  purpose  of  our 
being  does  not  lie  in  anything  that  can  be  taken  from 
us.  ^T  is  not  in  our  prosperity,  and  it  may  be  accom- 
plished in  spite  of  adversity ;  't  is  not  in  the  rela- 
tionships of  home,  in  tender  companionship  with 
friends,  in  public  honor  or  regard.  Thy  worth,  O 
Fellow-man  or  woman,  is  in  thyself,  —  in  thy  patient 
soul,  in  thine  incorruptible  will,  in  thy  readiness  to 
accept  whatever  post  the  universe  assigns  thee,  in 
thy  quiet  faithfulness  there,  whether  amid  sunshine 
or  the  dark,  amid  joy  or  sorrow.  We  know  not  any 
more  than  Socrates  what  we  ought  to  wish  for  our- 
selves ;  we  know  not,  in  truth,  what  is  best  for  us ; 
we  know  not  what  will  bring  out  that  which  is  most 
truly  divine  and  godlike  within  us.  The  lamented 
Garfield  said  we  could  no't  know  any  one  perfectly 
well  "  while  he  was  in  perfect  health ;  and  as  the 
ebb-tide  discloses  the  real  lines  of  the  shore  and  the 
bed  of  the  sea,  so  feebleness,  sickness,  and  pain  bring 


170  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

out  the  real  character  of  a  man."     Matthew  Arnold 
says  of  a  friend  :  — 

"  I  saw  him  sensitive  in  frame, 

I  knew  his  spirits  low, 
And  wislied  him  health,  success,  and  fame,  — 

I  do  not  wish  it  now. 

"  For  these  are  all  their  own  reward, 

And  leave  no  good  behind  ; 
They  try  us,  —  oftenest  make  us  hard. 

Less  modest,  pure,  and  kind." 

Emerson  even  says,  *^  Adversity  is  the  prosperity 
of  the  great ;  "  and  if  this  seems  strained,  we  do  not 
feel  it  so  when  we  see  some  heroic  man  or  woman 
bearing  up  under  great  ills  with  godlike  equanimity 
and  patience.  0  Friend,  think  not  thyself  off  the 
track  of  destiny  because  things  are  awry,  and  fortune 
does  not  smile  upon  thee,  and  thou  hast  not,  perhaps, 
a  thing  that  thou  cravest !  think  not  that  the  World 
Spirit  has  not  an}"  path  marked  out  for  thee  to  follow! 
The  path  of  duty  is  still  the  predestined  path ;  and 
though  it  be  no  longer  to  do,  but  to  bear,  bear  but  as 
bravely  as  thou  woiildst  do,  and  never  was  there  better 
soldier  of  duty  than  thou  ! 

IL 

The  field  of  our  thoughts  is  a  wide  one ;  the  field 
of  our  actions  is  ordinarily  a  narrow  one.  Ethics 
covers  both.  It  asks  that  we  have  just  thoughts, 
true  thoughts,  everywhere;  it  gives  the  ideal  also 
for  each  day's  smallest  and,  as  it  may  seem,  most 
insignificant  actions.  The  real  world  to  most  of  us 
is   not  at  all  large ;  it  is  so  near  and  commonplace 


PERSONAL  MORALITY.  171 

that  we  are  apt  to  slight  it.  Our  real  world,  that 
which  we  daily  see  and  are  acting  in  the  midst  of 
almost  constantly,  is  made  up  of  those  in  our  own 
household,  of  a  few  friends,  and  of  a  few  more  ac- 
quaintances, and  of  ourselves.  Yet  it  is  here  that  our 
actions  tell,  and  here  that  our  responsibility  centres. 

The  home  lies  closest  about  us.  How  tender  we 
should  be  there  !  What  solace  ought  every  member 
of  that  intimate  circle  to  find  there !  If  in  the  world 
without  we  feel  that  we  are  misunderstood  and  mis- 
judged, how  should  the  fret  and  depression  that  come 
from  it  vanish  and  dissipate  as  we  return  to  that  lov- 
ing, genial  atmosphere  and  to  those  generous  hearts 
who  take  us  at  our  best,  and  by  trusting  us  tend  to 
keep  us  so  !  What  opportunity  equals  that  of  parents 
toward  their  children,  that  of  elder  brothers  or  sis- 
ters toward  the  younger  ?  With  what  ample  consid- 
eration should  we  treat  those  who  are  not  so  strong 
as  others,  not  so  bright  in  mind,  or  who  have  some 
failing  that  causes  the  world  to  look  down  upon 
them,  and  the  sense  of  which  brings  to  themselves 
at  times  confusion  and  mortification !  How  watchful 
we  should  be  about  hurting  them !  How  we  should 
strive  to  keep  in  them  something  of  that  self-respect 
which  is  the  basis  of  all  the  virtues  !  What  is  more 
pitiable  than  a  child  ignored  or  contemptuously 
treated  at  home  ?  Yet,  strangely  enough,  those  who 
are  brought  nearest  to  us,  and  for  whom  we  can  do 
most,  we  sometimes  treat  the  most  coolly  and  for 
them  do  the  least.  Many  a  man  who  is  courtesy 
itself  to  other  women,  comes  to  show  little  to  his 
wife ;  many  a  son  who  has  great  deference  for  men 
in  general,  shows  little  before  his  own  father ;  many 


172  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

a  young  woman  who  has  ample  consideration  for  the 
failings  of  her  sex,  is  yet  impatient  and  ungenerous 
toward  her  own  sisters.  Oh  that  we  might  learn  that 
our  nearest  duties  are  the  highest ;  that  we  might 
think  more  and  more  tenderly  of  those  whom  we 
daily  and  perhaps  hourly  see ;  that  we  might  keep 
our  reverence  for  them  ;  that  we  might  bear  with 
them,  and  always  have  the  will  to  do  them  good  ! 
Father,  mother,  wife,  child,  brother,  sister,  —  thou 
wilt  never  know  any  as  precious  as  these  ;  none  who 
have  such  a  right  to  thy  love  ;  none  for  whom  thou 
wilt  ever  have  a  right  to  do  so  much ! 

Nothing  more  befits  a  man  in  his  intercourse  with 
his  acquaintances  than  magnanimity,  —  a  certain 
largeness  of  temper  and  soul.  It  might  be  almost 
called  the  courtesy  due  to  human  nature  as  such  to 
be  generous  toward  it.  Men  are  so  constituted  that 
if  we  think  evil  of  them  we  are  apt  to  find  some 
evil,  and  if  we  look  for  what  is  good  we  find  the  good 
instead. 

Magnanimity  means  looking  for  the  good,  expect- 
ing it,  not  being  willing  to  allow  the  contrary  till  we 
are  forced  to.  It  means,  where  there  are  two  inter- 
pretations of  a  man's  conduct  possible,  the  being  in- 
clined to  take  the  more  generous  one,  —  not  out  of 
charity,  but  because  of  an  instinct  of  breadth  and  lib- 
erality. Magnanimity  is  ordinarily  thought  to  consist 
in  overlooking  injuries,  but  I  should  say  it  was  more 
truly  shown  in  unwillingness  to  credit  them.  Some- 
times we  are  like  the  boys  who  put  chips  on  their 
shoulders  and  dare  some  one  to  knock  them  off ;  and 
then  injuries  come  to  us  that  are  never  meant  to  be 
injuries,  that  exist  only  in  our  active  imagination  and 


PERSONAL  MORALITY.  173 

our  suspicious  minds.  "Trifles  light  as  air,"  says 
Sliakspeare,  *'  are  to  the  jealous  eontirmations  strong  as 
proofs  of  holy  writ ; "  but  to  the  magnanimous  they 
are  like  those  discords  of  which  George  Eliot  speaks, 
that,  "  quenched  by  meeting  harmonies,  die  in  the  large 
and  charitable  air."  I  have  seen  misunderstandings 
arise  between  persons  who  I  am  sure  meant  no  ill 
to  one  another,  yet  simply  because  each  was  jealous 
of  his  own  rights  and  suspicious  that  the  other  was 
willing  to  wrong  him,  involved  themselves  in  grave 
and  sad  complications  ;  and  I  have  thought  that  the 
way  out  of  the  difficulty  was  not  in  finding  how  far 
each  was  right  and  each  was  wrong,  but  in  the  gain- 
ing by  both  of  a  larger  and  nobler  temper.  I  see 
no  way  to  go  along  smoothly  in  the  world  without 
an  habitual  large-mindedness.  There  are  so  many 
"touchy"  persons,  to  use  a  colloquial  phrase,  who  are 
making  others  uncomfortable  all  the  time,  and,  what 
is  quite  as  bad,  making  themselves  uncomfortable  too. 
They  are  on  the  watch,  as  it  were,  lest  some  one  tres- 
pass on  their  rights ;  they  constantly  misinterpret 
others,  and  come  to  wear  often  a  gently  injured  air, 
which  would  be  amusing  were  it  not  so  annoying. 
All  this  is  the  opposite  of  magnanimity.  A  mag- 
nanimous man  never  doubts  that  others  will  respect 
him.  He  is  impatient  with  those  who  magnify  tri- 
fles ;  he  is  conscious  of  rectitude  in  himself,  and  be- 
lieves in  it  in  others  in  spite  of  a  few  appearances 
to  the  contrary. 

And  what  an  occasion  for  magnanimity  arises  in 
the  little  differences  of  opinion,  in  the  discussions 
between  friends  and  acquaintances,  that  often  arise ! 
How  profitless  many  of  our  discussions  are,  because 


174  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

we  persist  in  keeping  our  own  point  of  view,  and  do 
not  even  try  to  understand  what  the  other  person 
really  means  !  How  we  are  apt  to  seize  upon  some 
trifling  mistake,  to  magnify  some  petty  error,  and 
overlook  the  drift  and  tenor  of  the  differing  opinion 
as  a  whole  !  What  a  change  it  would  be,  if  neglect- 
ing these  minor  blemishes  we  seized  upon  the  main 
idea  of  the  person  with  whom  we  are  conversing, 
and  sought  to  do  justice  to  it,  and  to  understand  it! 
Surely,  one  has  little  confidence  in  the  truth  of  his 
own  view  who  is  not  willing  for  a  moment  to  enter- 
tain a  different  one.  A  discussion  never  should  de- 
generate into  a  dispute ;  if  ill-will  arises,  there  should 
be  an  end  of  it.  Bigotry  can  never  be  conquered  by 
bigotry.  Bigotry  can  only  be  conquered  by  candor,  and 
by  a  noble  breadth  of  view  that  will  make  even  the 
idea  of  the  bigot  swim  in  a  sea  of  larger  thought.  Let 
Liberals  not  harbor  narrow  prejudices  against  those  of 
Jewish  or  Christian  faith.  Let  us  be  willing  to  con- 
sider all  the  truth  there  is  in  the  old  religions,  all  the 
services  they  have  rendered  mankind,  all  the  uses  to 
which  their  nobler  adherents  are  still  putting  them  in 
the  world.  And  let  us  do  this  not  grudgingly,  or  as  if 
we  were  conceding  something,  but  with  a  truth-loving 
spirit ;  and  this  spirit  will  perchance  pass  to  those 
with  whom  we  converse,  and  lead  them  to  deal  with 
us  in  a  fairer  temper.  The  test  of  any  set  of  views 
is,  after  all,  to  what  extent  open,  candid,  truth-loving 
minds  can  hold  them.  The  best  argument  in  our 
favor  lies  in  the  noble  temper  we  at  all  times  show, 
in  our  aversion  to  all  the  tricks  by  which  the  passions 
and  prejudices  of  men  are  stirred,  in  our  magnanimity 
to  friend  and  foe  alike. 


PERSONAL  MORALITY.  175 

Another  disposition,  upon  which  the  smoothing 
and  sweetening  of  our  daily  life  much  depends,  is 
thoughtfulness  about  little  things.  There  is  much 
conceit  and  nonsense  about  what  makes  the  gentle- 
man or  lady.  One  essential  mark  of  such  persons, 
I  should  say,  is  mindfulness  of  little  attentions,  the 
habit  of  rendering  little  kindnesses  of  which  the  or- 
dinary, grosser  man  or  woman  scarcely  thinks.  The 
root  of  courtesy,  after  self-respect,  is  in  a  fine  sym- 
pathy with  others.  We  widely  err  in  thinking  that 
great  things  are  necessary  to  make  us  happy.  A  wo- 
man does  not  ask  much  from  her  husband;  but  she 
asks  his  love,  —  and  this  shown  in  numberless,  trifling 
ways.  You  do  not  count  on  great  favors  from  your 
friend ;  but  a  little,  done  with  real  friendship,  goes  a 
long  way  with  you.  I  verily  believe  that  the  happi- 
ness of  most  of  us,  so  far  as  others  are  concerned, 
depends  more  on  their  manner,  their  look,  their  voice, 
their  evident  friendliness  for  us,  than  upon  anything 
they  can  do  for  us.  1  believe  that  nothing  so  contri- 
butes to  the  evenness  and  serenity  and  cheerfulness  of 
our  own  minds  as  the  habit  of  saying  pleasant  words, 
rendering  little  attentions,  and  doing  little  insignifi- 
cant services  which  we  should  be  ashamed  to  speak 
of,  after  they  are  done.  "  Small  service  is  true  ser- 
vice while  it  lasts,-'  says  Wordsworth  :  yes,  if  we  put 
love  into  it.  It  is  these  small  services  that  bind 
friends,  that  keep  the  love  of  lovers  fresh.  They  are 
the  flower  of  courtesy :  they  go  to  make  up  what  the 
same  poet  calls 

"  That  best  portion  of  a  good  man's  life,  — 

His    little,  namelesS;  unremembered  acts    of    kindness  and    of 
love." 


176  ETHICAL  EELIGION. 

Many  persons  are  oppressed  with  the  littleness  of 
their  lives  ;  they  would  like  to  be  doing  great  things, 
and  the  petty  duties  of  each  day  take  up  all  their 
time.  They  do  not  recollect  that  faithfulness  is  the 
first  and  highest  thing  required  of  us,  that  this  may 
be  shown  in  little  things  as  well  as  in  great,  and 
that  the  commonest  lot  may  be  transfigured  by  the 
love,  the  patience,  and  the  sweetness  we  put  into  it. 
What  is,  after  all,  wanted  most  in  the  world  is  not 
great  persons  fitted  for  great  occasions,  or  ordinary 
ones  fitted  for  the  ordinary,  but  great  persons  who 
will  throw  their  greatness  into  the  ordinary ;  who 
will  show  how  much  dignity,  how  much  goodness, 
how  much  sweetness  may  characterize  the  life  of 
every  day ;  whose  minds  are  conversant  with  princi- 
ples that  their  most  private  actions  exemplify ;  whose 
very  ^'  good-morning "  makes  us  glad,-  and  whose 
"  good-by "  seems  like  a  benediction ;  whose  daily 
look  mirrors  a  heaven  of  love,  of  self-renouncement, 
and  of  peace.  Ah,  Friend,  fight  the  battle  in  thy  ob- 
scure corner  of  life,  —  fight  the  battle  with  thyself, 
thy  restlessness,  thy  fears,  and  accept  thy  lot !  Thou 
canst  not  choose  thy  task,  perhaps,  but  thou  canst 
^^  choose  to  do  it  well."  Thou  canst  not  do  what 
thou  wouldst,  yet  thou  canst  do  bravely  what  thou 
must.  Do  it!  for  the  deepest  law  of  human  life  is 
faithfulness,  and  by  obeying  it  thou  dost  acquire  a 
worth  that  life  itself  cannot  exhaust  and  death  can- 
not destroy.  "He  that  is  faithful  in  that  which  is 
least  is  faithful  also  in  much,"  said  Jesus.  A  great 
saying,  for  it  upsets  the  measurements  of  the  world 
and  of  our  worldly  morality.  It  is  enough  to  endear 
him  to  the  hearts  of  men ;  for  it  shows  that  he  looked 


PERSONAL  MORALITY.  177 

upon  the  heart,  and  judged  men  by  what  they  were, 
and  not  by  what  they  could  do. 

Another  virtue  much  needed  in  our  daily  inter- 
course with  others,  is  readiness  to  own  a  fault. 
The  whole  virtue  is  in  our  readiness,  — in  being  quick 
to  own  we  have  been  in  the  wrong.  We  do  not  like 
of  course  to  shame  ourselves,  not  only  before  others, 
but  in  our  own  eyes.  Nothing  is  more  unwelcome. 
Therefore  there  are  few  more  genuine  moral  experi- 
ences than  those  of  confessing  a  fault,  provided  it  be 
spontaneous,  and  we  are  not  driven  or  compelled  to  it. 
We  separate  ourselves  in  such  an  act  from  what  we 
ought  to  be,  and  feel  the  "  ought  to  be ''  as  above  us 
and  as  it  were  condemning  us.  It  is  sensitiveness 
we  need  to  have.  Most  persons  know  when  they  do 
wrong,  but  they  do  not  rue  it,  they  do  not  grieve 
over  it ;  they  do  not  confess  it  —  if  they  confess  at 
all  —  until  the  feelings  of  contrition  have  lost  their 
warmth  and  the  confession  half  its  virtue.  It  is 
an  affecting  passage  of  Scripture  :  "  Let  not  the  sun 
go  down  upon  your  wrath."  Each  blessed  day  in 
this  life  of  ours  makes  a  kind  of  whole,  and  no  evil 
should  be  done  in  it  that  is  not  repented  of  before 
its  close.  For  who  will  allow  that  confession  is  only 
a  childish  virtue,  —  or,  if  it  were,  would  not  ask  that 
he  might  keep  the  child's  heart  and  the  child's  habit, 
and  even  if  it  be  before  some  sainted  spirit  of  the 
dead,  or  before  Jesus,  or  before  some  image  of  the 
Highest,  which  seems  to  bend  over  and  listen  to  him, 
might  pour  out  his  sorrow  and  his  shame  rather  than 
not  have  any  sorrow  and  shame  at  all  ?  But  the 
man's  habit  should  differ  from  the  child's  only  in  that 
while  the  child  confesses  to  a  father  or  mother,  the 

12 


178  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

man  should  confess  to  himself.  The  dignity  of  man 
is  that  he  is  both  the  doer  and  the  judge  of  his 
actions.  The  child  could  not  humble  itself  before 
the  parent,  did  not  the  parent  voice  the  dormant  con- 
science of  the  child.  The  man  only  reaches  the  true 
stature  of  a  man  when  his  conscience  becomes  awake 
and  alive. 

"  Sits  there  no  judge  in  heaven,  our  sin  to  see  ? 
More  strictly,  then,  the  inward  judge  obey." 

Is  this  impossible  ?  No ;  an  unwelcome,  a  difficult 
task  it  may  be  to  sit  in  judgment  on  ourselves,  but 
not  impossible.  I  believe  a  man  can  be  as  vigilant 
over  himself  as  ever  God  or  angel  could  be.  I  believe 
he  may  be  as  impartial  toward  himself,  as  high  in  his 
demands,  and  as  sure  in  his  condemnations.  There  is 
a  God  in  every  man,  and  it  is  for  us  to  let  him  speak, 
and  to  hear  him  ;  and  not  till  we  do  this  is  the  true 
aim  of  our  being  carried  out. 


X. 

ON  SOME  FEATURES  OF  THE  ETHICS  OF  JESUS. 


THERE  have  been  noble-minded  men,  like  Schil- 
ler and  John  Stuart  Mill,  who  have  been  offended 
with  one  aspect  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus.  The  charge 
is  in  substance  that  his  teaching  is  sometimes  mer- 
cenary,—  that  he  does  not  ask  men  to  do  right  be- 
cause it  is  right,  but  because  they  shall  be  rewarded 
in  a  future  state  if  they  do,  or  punished  if  they  do 
not.  There  are  certainly  passages  which  lend  them- 
selves to  this  interpretation.  Jesus  unquestionably 
believed  in  future  rewards  and  punishments;  and  it 
is  a  mistake  to  imagine  him  a  mild,  modern  humani- 
tarian, without  a  sense  of  law  or  of  the  just  deserts  of 
men.  But  this  is  not  saying  that  he  appealed  to  the 
self -regarding  motives  ivhen  urging  upon  men  moral 
conduct.  It  is  one  thing  to  recognize  that  wickedness 
will  call  down  vengeance  from  heaven ;  it  is  another 
to  seek  to  dissuade  from  wickedness  solely  or  chiefly 
for  fear  of  that  vengeance. 

I  cannot  consider  the  sayings  of  Jesus  in  detail,  but 
a  general  key  to  their  understanding  seems  to  me  to 
lie  in  the  distinction  between  the  prophet  and  the  mere 
exhorter  or  preacher.  Many  Christian  preachers  have 
used  the  ideas  of  heaven  and  hell  as  motives  to  deter- 


180  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

mine  men  in  their  conduct ;  and  Christian  morality,  as 
commonly  taught  in  the  past,  has  been  deeply  tainted 
with  the  mercenary  spirit.  But  Jesus  was  not  pri- 
marily a  preacher  or  exhorter ;  he  makes  few  appeals 
to  men.  His  frequent  attitude  is  one  all  uncommon, 
if  not  well-nigh  unintelligible  to  us  of  the  Western 
world ;  he  stands  for  the  Highest,  and  as  a  prophet 
declares  the  law  of  the  Highest  to  men.  Who  does 
not  at  times  crave  a  justification  of  the  ways  of  the 
Eternal  ?  Who  has  not  at  times  had  his  soul  stirred 
within  him  as  the  course  of  things  has  seemed  to 
favor,  if  not  to  be  in  league  with,  the  unjust  man  and 
the  oppressor,  and  to  be  coldly  indifferent,  if  not  hos- 
tile, to  the  good  ?  Who  has  not  cried  out  for  judg- 
ment, and  asked  :  "  Why  standest  thou  afar  off,  O 
Lord  ?  .  .  .  Break  thou  the  arm  of  the  wicked  and 
the  evil  man  ! ''  A  Hebrew  psalmist  once  pictured  the 
righteous  man  as  a  lamb,  graciously  tended  and  pro- 
tected by  the  shepherd,  Jahveh.  No  one  can  fail 
to  see  the  beauty  and  the  pathos  of  the  picture ;  but 
how  often  is  it  true  ?  Yet  we  believe  it  ought  to 
be  true,  —  that  the  deep  nature  of  things  must  some- 
how prefer  the  just  to  the  unjust  man,  and  that  this 
preference  ought  to  be  made  manifest.  The  prophet 
addresses  himself  to  this  problem,  or  rather  brings  an 
answer  to  it ;  and  the  answer  which  Jesus  gave  has 
written  itself  into  the  hearts  of  myriads  of  men,  and 
has  been  the  stay  and  consolation  not  only  of  actual 
sufferers,  but  of  those  harassed  with  doubt,  —  of  those 
who  but  for  it  would  have  lost  all  intellectual  satis- 
faction with  life.  A  great  change  was  impending  in 
human  affairs,  he  declared  ;  the  power  of  evil  and 
wrong  would  soon  come  to  an  end ;  the  world  would 


SOME  FEATURES  OF  THE  ETHICS  OF  JESUS.     181 

show  itself  on  the  side  of  the  poor  and  the  merciful 
and  the  pure  in  heart,  and  of  those  who  love  peace 
and  thirst  for  justice.  For  these  a  new  day  would 
soon  dawn  ;  the  "  kingdom  of  heaven  "  should  greet 
them,  and  mercy  and  blessedness  and  the  vision  of 
the  Highest  should  be  theirs;  while  for  the  proud, 
the  contentious,  the  self-willed,  and  the  wicked  there 
should  be,  as  there  ought  to  be,  humiliation,  shame, 
gnashing  of  teeth,  and  the  fire  that  is  not  quenched. 
The  "kingdom  of  heaven,''  so  soon  as  Jesus  thought  to 
be  ushered  in,  was  his  answer  to  the  great  problem ; 
it  was  his  justification  of  the  ways  of  the  Eternal  to 
men  ;  it  was  to  be  the  end  of  the  strange  mazes  and 
the  solution  of  the  riddle  of  human  history. 

Hence,  when  Jesus  says,  "  There  is  no  man  that 
hath  left  house  or  brethren  or  sisters  .  .  .  for  my 
sake  and  the  gospel's  sake,  but  he  shall  receive  an 
hundred-fold  now  in  this  time,  .  .  .  and  in  the  world 
to  come  life  everlasting,"  I  do  not  conceive  that  he  is 
making  an  appeal  to  or  even  consoling  men  so  much 
as  declaring  a  law,  uttering  what  to  his  mind,  in  the 
moral  nature  of  things,  must  be,  and  what  the  appar- 
ent contradictions  of  experience  put  upon  him  a  pas- 
sionate necessity  of  declaring.  At  another  time,  when 
Jesus  violently  drove  the  money-changers  out  of  the 
Temple,  we  are  told  that  his  disciples  called  to  mind 
a  saying  out  of  the  Psalms,  "The  zeal  of  thine  house 
shall  eat  me  up."  If  we  in  these  secular  days  could 
realize  the  meaning  of  such  a  passion,  —  if  we  could 
enter  into  that  "  zeal  for  God  "  and  for  the  vindica- 
tion of  a  Divine  order  in  the  world  which  made,  along 
with  a  kind  of  tender  pity  for  the  wronged  and  baffled, 
one  of  the  leading  motives  of  Jesus'  life,  —  we  should 


182  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

not  find  it  so  easy  to  call  his  morality  mercenary,  and 
should  reserve  our  impatience  and  indignation  for 
those  who  conceive  no  other  uses  for  his  words  than 
as  allurements  or  as  threats  to  keep  men  in  the  way 
of  righteousness. 

An  objection  to  another  part  of  Jesus'  moral  teaching 
is  that  it  is  extravagant  a7id  impracticable,  *'How  can 
we,"  it  is  said,  "  resist  not  evil,  turn  the  other  cheek, 
give  away  our  cloak  to  one  who  takes  our  coat,  and 
freely  lend  to  every  one  ?  Are  not  law  and  economy 
equally  opposed  to  such  precepts  ?  How  long  would 
orderly  society  endure  if  they  were  obeyed  ?  Is  it  not 
the  teaching  of  the  new  charity  that  we  are  not  to  give 
and  not  to  lend  save  on  some  kind  of  business  princi- 
ple ?"  I  think  a  measure  of  confusion  is  betrayed  in 
questions  of  this  sort.  Jesus  does  not,  if  I  understand 
aright,  condemn  resistance  for  self-defence,  but  has  in 
mind  the  old  precepts  of  "an  eye  for  an  eye,  and  a 
tooth  for  a  tooth,"  and  the  spirit  of  retaliation  which 
was  at  their  basis.  For  self-defence,  we  may  use  vio- 
lence to  protect  our  person  or  our  property  or  our 
rights.  For  self-defence,  one  nation  may  rise  against 
another,  or  one  class  against  another.  If  Jesus  would 
have  condemned  such  self-defence,  it  was  in  connection 
with  a  view  of  Providence  which  we  of  to-day  can  no 
longer  share.  Eetaliation,  however,  is  an  entirely  dif- 
ferent matter.  I  know  of  no  rule  of  equity  according 
to  which  we  may  return  blow  for  blow  or  oppression 
for  oppression.  This  would  not  be  righting  a  wrong, 
but  making  a  double  wrong.  Better  than  this  would 
be  actually  turning  the  other  cheek  and  going  the  sec- 
ond mile. 

Nor  do  the  new  rules  of  charity  now  happily  making 


SOME  FEATURES  OF  THE  ETHICS  OF  JESUS.     183 

their  way  in  our  midst  contradict  the  precepts  of  Jesus. 
A  business  charity,  in  one  sense  of  the  word,  would  not 
be  charity  at  all.  To  give  help  to  no  one  asking  for 
it,  because  of  a  rudely  conceived  principle  that  every 
one  ought  to  help  himself,  would  not  be  to  make  an 
advance  upon  Christian  practice,  but  to  go  back  to  the 
hardness  of  heathenism.  It  must  not  be  because  we 
love  less  or  are  ready  to  do  less  that  we  give  up  the 
old  habit  of  almsgiving,  but  because  we  love  more,  be- 
cause we  wish  to  institute  more  radical  means  of  relief, 
and  thereby  not  merely  temporarily  relieve  distress, 
but  do  something  toward  checking  it  at  its  sources.  If 
there  is  merely  the  economical  or  the  business  spirit  in 
the  new  charity,  if  the  aim  is  chiefly  to  rid  ourselves 
of  annoyances  and  banish  unsightly  objects  from  the 
public  gaze,  depend  upon  it,  no  great  results  will  come 
from  it,  —  no  such  results  as  came  from  that  mighty 
movement  of  pity  and  tenderness  which  streamed  from 
the  heart  of  Jesus,  and  took  the  weak  and  unprotected 
under  its  special  care,  which  established  beneficent 
institutions,^  and  made  the  relief  of  want  or  suffering 
one  of  the  primary  virtues.  No  ;  only  a  new  birth  of 
love,  a  new  enthusiasm  for  humanity,  will  effect  any 
radical  revolution  in  human  conditions  ;  only  a  new 
wave  of  such  tender  feeling  as  was  in  Jesus  him- 
self, though  it  be  in  connection  with  our  view  of  the 
world  and  not  with  his,  and  guided  in  its  manner 
of  expression  by  all  the  light  that  past  experience 
and  scientific  observation  and  experiment  can  give 
us.  The  best  machinery  will  after  a  time  lie  idle, 
if  there  is  not  the  force  of  human  love  to  propel  it. 

1  The  first  general  Council  of  the  Church  (at  Nicaea,  325  a.  d.) 
ordered  the  erection  of  a  hospital  in  every  city. 


184  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

Nothing  —  not  all  knowledge  or  skill . —  will  take  its 
place. 

Jesus  told  the  rich  young  man  to  go  and  sell  all 
that  he  had  and  give  to  the  poor.  Let  us  very  care- 
fully discriminate,  if  we  object  to  that  saying.  I  might 
almost  say  it  is  at  our  peril  if  we  do  so  ;  for  the  very 
breath  of  it  is  the  utterness  of  consecration  it  enjoins. 
According  to  it,  there  is  nothing  which  is  to  be  cher- 
ished as  privately  our  own :  what  we  have  and  all  of  it 
is  for  common  blessing.  I  have  a  deeper  faith  in  man 
than  those  economists  and  sophisters  (and  there  are 
some  "ministers  of  religion"  among  them)  who  think 
it  necessary,  in  explaining  this  precept,  to  strip  its  ex- 
actions of  their  grandeur,  and  trim  and  adjust  them 
to  the  levels  of  conventional  benevolence.  I  believe 
man  at  his  deepest  does  not  want  to  be  left  where  he 
is,  but  to  be  lifted  higher.  I  believe  that  he  can  give 
unselfishly,  can  give  all  he  has,  —  his  possessions,  — 
yes,  not  hesitating  at  his  life,  when  some  cause  makes 
transcendent  claims  upon  him.  Prudence  is  indeed 
called  for ;  but  there  are  two  kinds  of  prudence,  —  the 
one  springing  from  selfishness,  the  other  born  of  re- 
ligion itself.  The  same  outward  acts  may  have  mean- 
ings at  a  heaven-wide  distance  from  each  other.  Sup- 
pose, for  example,  that  I  refuse  alms  to  a  beggar  on 
the  street.  I  may  do  so  because,  having  hardened  my- 
self into  the  idea  that  every  man  is  himself  entirely 
responsible  for  his  condition,  I  feel  no  promptings  of 
pity  in  my  breast ;  on  the  other  hand,  I  may  refuse 
for  very  pity  and  bewilderment,  knowing  how  little 
such  help  would  be,  how  much  greater  are  his  needs 
than  those  I  could  thus  cover,  and  with  the  thought 
either  to  go  with  him  to  his  home  and  learn  well  of 


SOME  FEATURES  OF  THE  ETHICS  OF  JESUS.    185 

his  misfortunes,  or  to  send  some  one  wiser  and  better 
qualiJied  than  I  to  do  this  for  me.  This  would  be  a 
totally  different  prudence,  and  would  be  nowise  con- 
tradictory to  the  precept  of  Jesus  himself:  *^Give  to 
him  that  asketh  thee,  and  from  him  that  would  bor- 
row of  thee  turn  not  thou  away."  The  indiscriminate 
and  unthinking  giving  of  alms,  which  has  been  too 
characteristic  of  the  Christian  Church,  we  may  indeed 
censure,  —  doubtless,  it  has  done  and  still  is  doing 
much  harm ;  but  it  must  be  because  there  is  rising 
within  us  a  deeper  and  more  serious  sj^irit  of  hu- 
manity than  the  Church  has  ordinarily  exhibited  in 
the  past. 

Another  objection  to  the  moral  teaching  of  Jesus 
1  shall  i3ass  over  lightly  ;  it  is  astonishing  that  an 
earnest  radical  thinker  should  ever  make  it.  It  is 
that  Jesus  slights  the  family  relations.  That  he  held 
sacred  the  idea  of  the  family  and  of  the  marriage 
bond,  which  is  at  its  basis,  is  shown  by  words  so  se- 
vere and  exalted  that  few  of  his  followers  nowadays 
are  able  to  bear  them,  —  I  mean  those  which  declare 
marriage  indissoluble  save  for  the  single  cause  of  adul- 
tery. Only  the  Catholic  Church,  which  along  with 
whatever  additions  and  Aberglauhe  seems  yet  most 
faithfully  to  have  preserved  the  primitive  Christian 
traditions,  insists  upon  obedience  to  these  words.  But 
it  is  at  a  practical  slighting  of  family  ties  that  the 
objection  is  aimed.  It  is  true  that  Jesus  called  upon 
men  to  leave  brothers  and  sisters  and  parents,  and 
follow  him.  He  would  not  even  suffer  a  disciple 
to  go  and  bury  his  father,  rather  rudely,  as  it  may 
seem,  saying,  "Let  the  dead  bury  their  dead."  He 
said,   not   peace,   but   a   sword,   was   he   introducing 


186  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

into  the  world  :  he  was  come  to  set  a  man  at  vari- 
ance against  his  father,  and  the  daughter  against  her 
mother,  and  to  cause  a  man's  foes  to  be  those  of 
his  own  household.  And  when  his  own  mother  and 
brothers  wished  to  see  him,  we  are  told  that  with 
no  very  decided  show  of  affection  he  pointed  to  his 
disciples,  and  said,  ^*  These  are  my  mother  and  my 
brethren." 

Now,  if  morality  has  no  other  intent  than  to  pre- 
serve mankind  in  families  as  the  families  may  hap- 
pen to  be  constituted  at  any  one  time,  then  is  Jesus 
plainly  at  fault.     But  can  this  be  admitted  ?     Is  all 
possible   good   already  realized  and   incorporated   in 
social  institutions?     Is  there  no  justice,  and  no  call 
for  its  execution,  as  wide  as   the  human   race,  and 
immeasurably  in  advance  of  that  which  our  present 
laws  and  social  habits  reflect  ?     In  truth,  those  who 
object  to  the  divisions  in  family  life  which  necessa- 
rily followed  in  the  wake  of  Christianity,  deny  the 
logic  by  which  all  great  forward  movements  in  his- 
tory are  made  :  they  go  over  into  the  ranks  of  the 
conservatives.     Any  principle   thrown   into   the   fer- 
ment of  human  thoughts  and  aspirations  is  a  princi- 
ple of  division  ;   those  who  assent  to  it  are   parted 
from   those  who  do   not.     If  it   be   indeed   a  sover- 
eign principle,  like  that  of  justice,  then  no  lower  al- 
legiances have  a  right  to  interfere  with  the  supreme 
allegiance  due  to  it.     Man  must  choose  the  highest ; 
he  has  no  peace  or  honor  in  his  own  eyes  save  as  he 
does.     And  consistently  with  this  choice  all  his  other 
relations  in  life  must  be  ordered ;  they  dare  never 
assert  that  it  shall  be  modified  and  accommodated  so 
as  to  harmonize  with  them. 


SOME  FEATURES  OF  THE  ETHICS  OF  JESUS.    187 

Jesus  did  set  a  man  at  variance  against  his  father. 
He  was  stern  and  exacting  in  his  demand  of  absolute 
allegiance  to  the  cause  he  represented ;  he  did  feel  a 
closer  tie  of  kinship  to  those  who  heard  his  call  and 
obeyed  it  than  to  any  earthly  mother  or  brothers ;  and 
no  cause  has  ever  thrived  in  the  world  that  has  not 
in  a  measure  repeated  these  facts.  No  religion  of 
the  future  will  be  a  worthy  successor  of  the  religion 
of  the  past  that  does  not  introduce  a  similar  division, 
that  does  not  have  a  similar  attitude  of  exaction  to 
all  wavering  and  double-minded  persons,  and  does  not 
introduce  a  bond  of  union  over  and  above,  if  not  some- 
times in  contradiction  to,  the  traditional  bonds  that 
now  hold  men  together.  The  pathway  of  that  future 
religion,  of  which  we  know  so  little  and  yet  believe 
so  much,  is  strewed  with  flowers  to  many  a  prophetic 
young  heart  of  the  present.  I  have  no  idea  that  it 
will  be  so.  I  have  no  idea  that  there  will  be  any  less 
call  for  self-denial,  for  stern  faithfulness,  for  courage, 

—  yes,  for  daring  for  the  right,  —  than  there  has  been 
in  the  past.  Humanity  has  not  gone  one-tenth  or  one- 
hundredth  part  of  its  journey.  We  compare  ourselves 
with  the  past,  with  pre-Christian  or  with  mediaeval 
times :  it  is  for  us  rather  to  compare  ourselves  with 
the  idea  of  the  perfect,  to  feel  how  great,  how  well- 
nigh  measureless  is  the  distance  yet  to  be  travelled 
over.  The  goal  is  still  far  aloft,  and  the  way  to  it  is 
no  easy  one,  but  steep  and  winding,  and  perchance  has 
many  a  danger  lurking  by  its  side.  Are  we  ready  for 
new  toil,  for  more  heroic  aims,  for  severer  duty,  or  will 
we  take  our  ease  on  the  spot  we  have  already  reached, 

—  this  is  the  question,  answers  to  which  will  reveal 
whether  or  not  we  are  children  of  the  coming  time. 


188  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

II. 

I  turn  now  to  some  features  of  the  ethics  of  Jesus 
having  such  clear  and  positive  merit  that  little  ob- 
jection is  likely  to  be  made  to  them.  I  essay  no 
comparison  of  him  with  Socrates  or  Sakya-mouni  or 
Confucius.  This  is  a  difficult  and  delicate  task,  which 
should  not  be  undertaken  without  an  equipment  of 
historical  knowledge  and  sympathy  and  imagination, 
which  few  of  those  who  so  often  and  so  lightly  make 
the  attempt  seem  to  me  to  have.  I  do  not  deny,  in- 
deed, that  there  may  be  no  one  idea  in  Jesus'  teaching 
that  is  not  found  in  the  teaching  of  others  as  well; 
but  I  have  rather  in  mind  the  prophet  of  Nazareth  in 
connection  with  the  times  in  which  he  lived,  and  the 
actual  influence  he  has  had  upon  men  living  in  our 
Western  world.  It  cannot  be  claimed  that  we  stand 
in  any  such  relation  to  Socrates  or  the  Hindu  prince 
or  Confucius,  as  to  Jesus.  Socrates  has  not  been  with- 
out influence  upon  us,  but  it  cannot  be  soberly  called 
a  tithe  of  that  which  Jesus  has  had.  Would  that  men 
read  the  "Apology"  oftener,  — they  would  find  meat 
and  drink  in  it,  a  tonic  and  an  inspiration  for  their 
lives  !  But  there  is  need  for  no  such  wish  in  relation 
to  the  Gospels.  Jesus  is  an  ideal  of  goodness,  all  too 
indistinct  often,  but  hovering  in  the  thought  of  well- 
nigh  every  one  of  us.  It  is  true  that  there  is  much 
uncertainty  relating  not  onl}''  to  his  life,  but  to  his 
teaching  ;  yet  as  there  need  be  no  doubt  as  to  the 
main  tenor  and  events  of  his  life,  so  there  need  be 
none  as  to  the  commanding  features  of  his  teaching. 
They  make  too  largely  consistent  a  whole,  and  be- 
speak a  mind  of  too  much  freshness  and  originality 


SOME  FEATURES  OF  THE  ETHICS  OF   JESUS.    189 

and  power,  to  allow  us  to  think  of  them  as  coming  in 
an  indeiinite  way  from  an  age  otherwise  so  traditional, 
so  barren,  and  so  prosaic. 

First,  we  notice  that  he  opposes  the  traditional  mo- 
rality of  his  time.  And  in  this  relation,  what  other 
function,  we  may  ask,  is  there  for  the  prophet  than  to 
purify  and  enlarge  the  moral  ideal  of  men,  to  strip 
righteousness  of  conventional  expressions  and  reveal 
its  absolute  and  all-encompassing  nature?  To  acquiesce 
iu  the  moral  requirements  ordinarily  allowed,  to  pro- 
claim merely  the  old  Mosaic  law,  so  called,  and  insist 
upon  all  tlie  particularities  of  its  observance,  —  what 
need  for  Jesus  to  do  that  ?  All  this  was  being  done 
by  the  existing  teachers  of  the  nation,  and  especially 
the  Pharisees.  The  Pharisees  were,  no  doubt,  eminent 
patriots,  conservers  of  the  national  religious  life  and 
its  ancient  traditions,  and  stood,  as  some  one  has  re- 
marked, to  orthodox  Judaism  much  as  the  Jesuits  do 
to  the  Catholic  Church  in  its  contiict  with  liberal  ideas. 
They  had  on  their  side,  too,  the  majority  of  the  law- 
yers of  the  nation,  —  a  class  naturally  inclined  to  con- 
servatism, and  whose  function  is  somewhat  obscured 
to  us  by  the  title  Scribe,  which  is  usually  given  them 
in  the  New  Testament.  As  the  Pharisees  with  this 
legal  following  had  a  cause  and  an  enthusiasm  for  it, 
they  were  more  influential  and  held  in  higher  honor 
by  the  mass  of  the  people  than  the  party  of  the  Sad- 
ducees,  who,  with  their  inclination  to  liberalism,  and 
their  varnish  of  foreign  ideas  and  manners,  had  lost  a 
measure  of  both  religious  and  patriotic  zeal.  But  it 
was  the  mistake  of  the  Pharisees  to  esteem  as  final 
the  moral  code  contained  in  their  Scriptures.  Chris- 
tians affect  to  find  this  very  strange  in  view  of  the 


190  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

added  legislation  of  Jesus  ;  but  that  it  is  not  strange 
is  shown  by  the  very  fact  that  they  regard  Christian 
morality  as  final  and  incapable  of  being  superseded. 
It  is,  in  fact,  the  part  of  a  conservative  temper  the 
world  over  to  believe  that  things  materially  better 
than  the  old  cannot  come.  This  is  just  as  true  now 
as  at  any  time.  I  find  Liberals,  even,  who  look  with 
a  kind  of  disapproval,  if  not  disbelief,  upon  any  de- 
parture from  and  advance  upon  their  present  religious 
attitude.  That  which  we  know  and  are  accustomed  to 
—  the  old  wine  —  we  all  naturally  think  is  best.  But 
Jesus  did  add  to  the  old  legislation ;  he  was,  in  fact,  a 
second  '^  Moses  "  to  those  who  accepted  him.  We  will 
not  attempt  to  say  how  far  his  legislation  was  new, 
and  to  what  extent  there  were  anticipations  of  it  in 
the  old  Law  and  Prophets.  It  is  interesting  to  note 
that  almost  always,  when  advances  are  made  in  the 
world,  —  either  intellectual  or  moral  advances,  —  we 
are  all  ready  to  accredit  them,  after  they  are  accom- 
plished, to  the  authorities  whom  we  revere,  though 
when  they  were  making,  the  authorities  spoke  to  us 
with  no  such  clear  voice,  and  our  uncertainty  may 
have  practically  amounted  to  hostility.  So,  in  the 
future,  it  is  possible  that  no  reforms  will  ever  be 
accomplished  for  the  human  race  that  clever  Chris- 
tians will  not  claim,  after  they  are  accomplished,  to 
have  been  the  natural  expression  of  their  own  princi- 
ples ;  yet  now  it  can  hardly  be  said  that  their  Master 
speaks  to  them  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  them  feel 
that  they  must  themselves  accomplish  the  reforms. 

One  reformer  always  honors  another,  one  prophet 
always  feels  that  he  belongs  to  a  succession.  Each 
knows  well  that  it  is  not  this  or  that  particular  cause, 


SOME  FEATURES  OF  THE  ETHICS  OF  JESUS-     191 

as  such,  he  is  serving,  but  these  as  forms  of  one  cause, 
—  demands  of  one  principle,  —  which  is  itself  absolute 
though  they  all  be  relative,  limitless  though  they  all 
be  finite.  Ever  is  it  the  triumph  of  the  ideal  good,  the 
victory  of  the  just  in  the  world.  Only  he  is  a  genuine 
reformer  or  prophet  who  serves  his  cause  solely  be- 
cause of  its  Tightness,  and  gives  to  his  special  task  the 
form  of  this  absolute  consecration.  It  by  no  means  fol- 
lows, however,  that  each  prophet  honors  the  disciples  of 
another  prophet,  who  perhaps  cherish  his  words  with- 
out being  aware  of  the  animus  and  reach  of  thought 
that  lay  behind  them.  Circumstances  and  conditions 
change,  and  the  eternal  motive  must  prompt  to  new 
words  and  new  actions.  As  he  would  be  no  prophet  to 
us  to-day  who  should  merely  repeat  with  skilful  com- 
mentary the  message  of  eighteen  hundred  years  ago, 
so  Jesus,  had  he  but  strikingly  recast  the  words  of 
Moses  or  Isaiah,  would  have  been  a  Scribe  along  with 
the  rest.  One  with  them  in  fundamental  thought  he 
was  ;  but  he  spoke  from  his  own  consciousness  and 
not  from  theirs.  He  vindicated  the  ideal  to  a  gener- 
ation in  which  idealism  had  become  chiefly  a  tradition, 
and  convinced  the  most  scrupulous  followers  of  the  old 
law  of  sin,  of  righteousness,  and  of  a  judgment  that, 
to  his  rapt  vision,  hung  over  their  nation. 

Speaking  more  particularly,  he  gave  the  moral  law 
a  more  distinct  inward  application,  saying  that  our 
thoughts  and  words  have  a  moral  significance  like  that 
of  our  actions.  That  we  are  not  to  act  from  wrong 
motives  is  indeed  a  commonplace  of  morals ;  but  Jesus 
virtually  teaches  that  we  are  not  to  have  the  wrong 
motives.  Kepression  has  been  the  rule  ordinarily  laid 
down.   Jesus  implies  an  exalted  state  of  mind,  in  which 


192  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

there  shall  be  no  call  for  repression.  Is  it  said  that 
this  is  impossible,  —  that  our  inward  feelings  are  be- 
yond our  control,  and  that  in  any  case  we  cannot  be 
held  responsible  for  them,  but  only  for  the  harm  they 
may  lead  us  to  do  others  ?  Jesus  will  allow  none  of 
these  things.  Nothing  in  the  line  of  what  is  good  is 
impossible.  If  our  inward  feelings  are  wrong,  we  are 
responsible  for  allowing  them  to  exist,  and  can  change 
them  ;  and  there  is  such  a  thing  as  harming  ourselves 
in  a  more  serious  sense  than  we  can  ever  harm  others. 
Life  is  to  become  serious,  to  be  held  to  a  purpose,  to 
involve  discipline,  and  the  ideal  on  which  we  set  our 
hearts  is  not  to  be  abandoned  for  numberless  failures 
to  win  it.  What  a  profound  —  yes,  I  may  say  awful  — 
moral  seriousness  does  Jesus  reveal  in  his  commands; 
"If  thy  right  eye  causeth  thee  to  stumble,  pluck  it 
out,  and  cast  it  from  thee.  ...  If  thy  right  hand  caus- 
eth thee  to  stumble,  cue  it  off,  and  cast  it  from  thee." 
Yet  the  truth  may  be  all  with  him,  and  none  Avhat- 
ever  on  the  side  of  the  easy  conscientiousness  that 
makes  the  moral  outfit  of  most  of  us.  It  may  be  that 
there  is  no  injury  in  life  really  to  fear  but  a  moral  in- 
jury ;  that  there  is  no  comfort  nor  pleasure,  no  grace 
of  body  or  of  mind,  that  can  make  up  for  the  stains  on 
the  moral  nature  that  come  from  any  species  of  ac- 
tual or  imagined  sensuality.  It  may  be  that  it  would 
be  actually  better  to  lose  the  e^^e  or  the  hand  than 
to  allow  either  to  become  an  instrument  of  degrada- 
tion to  the  spiritual  nature.  Is  this  asceticism  ?  No ; 
but  verily  better,  nobler,  w^ould  be  asceticism  of  the 
severest  type  than  the  torpor  of  conscience  which  al- 
lows us  to  feel  only  passing  reproaches,  and  no  stings 
and  smarts,  when  unworthy  acts  or  unworthy  thoughts 


SOME  FEATURES  OF  THE  ETHICS  OF  JESUS.     193 

are  indulged  in.  There  is  no  relaxing,  to  my  mind, 
of  the  command  of  absolute  purity.  Are  we  thereby 
straining  the  possibilities  of  human  nature  ?  Lecky 
tells  us  that  when  the  Eoman  consul  "Marius  had 
vanquished  an  army  of  the  Teutons,  their  wives  be- 
sought the  conqueror  to  permit  them  to  become  the 
servants  of  the  vestal  virgins,  in  order  that  their  honor, 
at  least,  might  be  secure  in  slavery.  Their  request  was 
refused,  and  that  night  they  all  perished  by  their  own 
hands."  ^  No ;  if  honor  be  a  dream  to  many,  in  others 
the  tine  impalpable  thing  is  their  very  life. 

Further,  Jesus  removes  all  barriers  to  the  love  we 
owe  our  fellow-men.  Brotherly  and  neighborly  kind- 
ness had  indeed  been  granted  before,  and  doubtless 
the  prophetic  mind  now  and  then  caught  glimpses  of 
a  time  of  universal  love  and  brotherhood.  With  Je- 
sus, however,  this  love  was  to  become  the  present  and 
abiding  rule  of  life.  Even  our  enemies  are  to  be  loved  ; 
no  kind  of  malice  or  wish  to  injure  is  to  be  tolerated. 
We  are  to  forgive,  not  merely  seven  times,  but  sev- 
enty times  seven  ;  that  is,  forgiveness  is  an  unlimited 
Obligation.  These  are,  it  is  true,  commonplaces  to-day, 
though  it  be  commonplaces  of  thought  or  speech  rather 
than  of  actual  sentiment.  But  when  Jesus  uttered 
them  they  were  not  even  commonplaces  of  thought. 
The  humanity  of  the  ancient  world  was,  at  best,  a  tri- 
bal or  a  national  rather  than  a  universal  humanity. 
It  may  seem  strange,  and  yet  it  is  strictly  true,  that 
the  natural  condition  of  mankind  is  one  of  mutual 
enmity  rather  than  affection,  save  in  limited  circles 
of  relationship  :  nay,  with  all  our  professions,  and 
with  all  our  real  advances  in  feeling,  this  is  probably 

1  History  of  Morals,  ii.  361. 
13 


194  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

to  a  great  extent  true  to-day.  It  is  true  frequently  of 
nations,  true  of  classes,  true  of  corporations,  true  of 
private  individuals  who  are  seeking  the  same  prizes  in 
life.  The  reason  is  obvious  :  it  is  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation,  the  desire  to  maintain  ourselves  and  to 
get  the  best  places  in  life.  Those,  it  is  often  said,  can 
love  most  who  have  least  to  do  with  the  actual  strug- 
gle of  life.  They  who  are  in  the  battle  must  assert 
themselves  ;  they  can  have  no  fine  scruples,  but  must 
take  advantage  where  they  can,  and  may  even  injure 
where  they  must.  The  battle,  it  is  said,  that  science 
has  recently  revealed  to  us  as  going  on  in  the  lower 
world  is  going  on  equally  in  human  society.  Love  and 
brotherhood  are  hence  for  the  idealist  to  talk  of,  pos- 
sibly for  the  kingdom  of  heaven  to  realize  somewhere ; 
but  in  this  world  victory  is  for  the  strong.  And  per- 
haps it  is  childish  and  sentimental,  even  if  it  is  Chris- 
tian, to  care  for  so  many  weak  and  unprofitable  mem- 
bers of  our  species.  Why  not  follow  Nature,  or  rather 
simply  let  Nature  have  her  own  way,  and  then  only 
the  strong  and  the  fit  w^ould  survive  ? 

In  sober  truth,  I  believe  that  all  this  is  but  the  as- 
sertion of  the  brute  instincts  in  us,  seeking  indeed  to 
give  a  specious  justification  to  themselves,  taking  on 
the  airs  of  science  and  human  reasoning,  but  nowise 
the  utterance  of  what  is  strictly  human  in  us.  The 
human  is  developed  in  us  according  as  w^e  act  from 
other  motives  than  those  of  self-assertion,  as  we  re- 
member the  ties  that  bind  us  to  one  another,  and  seek 
only  that  good  for  ourselves  which  is  consistent  with 
the  good  of  all.  It  is  the  thought  of  humanity  that 
makes  us  human  ;  it  is  the  bond  linking  us  to  and 
making  us  a  part  of  humanity  —  a  bond  which  is  no 


SOME  FEATURES  OF  THE  ETHICS  OF  JESUS.     195 

natural  force  compelling  us,  but  a  fact  in  the  ideal  na- 
ture of  things,  and  constraining  us  only  with  an  ideal 
constraint  —  that  makes  our  very  dignity  and  glory. 
Human  brotherhood,  as  Jesus  taught  it,  is  an  idea 
which,  if  it  took  possession  of  human  hearts,  would 
not  allow  some  of  the  features  of  our  present  political 
and  social  institutions  to  last  a  day.  We  act  for  the 
most  part  from  the  lower  motives,  with  slight  modifica- 
tions and  a  slight  tempering  of  the  conduct  owing  to 
the  influence  of  ideas  from  above.  Eeligion  demands 
that  the  ideas  have  an  absolute,  an  all-controlling 
supremacy.  In  the  "  kingdom  of  heaven,"  of  which 
Jesus  spoke,  this  demand  was  to  be  realized.  None 
should  be  members  of  it  save  those  in  whom  love  was 
the  absolute  principle  ;  and  this  should  be  proved  by 
their  having  owned  the  claims  of  the  lowest  of  their 
brothers,  —  those  who,  in  the  bitterness  of  fate  or  in 
return  for  their  own  sin,  had  come  to  nakedness  or 
famishing  or  the  disgrace  of  prison  walls. 

There  is  this  element  of  truth  in  Jesus'  view,  that 
the  "  kingdom  "  is  to  come  from  above,  and  not  in 
the  natural  course  of  things  ;  namely,  that  it  is  not 
to  come,  and  cannot,  from  the  onworking  of  man's 
natural  self-regarding  impulses.  It  is  the  dogma  of 
a  certain  school  of  Liberal  philosophers  that  if  men 
"  are  left  free  to  act  in  accordance  with  their  obvious 
interests  and  their  natural  dispositions,  their  conduct 
will  tend  to  the  benefit  of  the  whole  of  mankind." 
There  is,  to  my  mind,  a  grain  of  truth  and  a  mass 
of  error  in  such  a  dogma.  The  Middle  Age  was  a 
time  when  the  natural  differences  between  men  had 
comparatively  free  play,  when  law  and  government 
meant  little  but  what  those  strong  enough  chose  to 


196  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

make  them.  Did  the  differences  happily  supplement 
one  another,  and  the  conduct  of  the  strong  and  capa- 
ble "  tend  to  the  benefit  of  the  whole  of  mankind  "  ? 
Instead  of  this,  history  discloses  to  us  the  strong,  — 
few  in  numberS;  yet  almost  wanton  in  pride  and 
power ;  princes,  ecclesiastical  as  well  as  secular,  — 
"benefiting"  men  by  making  them  their  vassals  and 
slaves  ;  and  a  part  of  the  significance  of  the  rise  of 
the  absolute  monarchy  in  the  fifteenth  century  con- 
sisted in  putting  checks  upon  the  unrestricted  free- 
dom of  the  strong,  in  preventing  them  in  many  an 
instance  from  following  their  "obvious  interests  and 
natural  dispositions,"  —  in  a  word,  in  diminishing  the 
inequalities  which  in  a  pure  state  of  nature  and  free- 
dom are  always  bound  to  show  themselves.  And  ill 
will  it  fare  with  any  republic  when  its  boasted  free- 
dom comes  to  mean  simply  the  freedom  of  one  class 
of  its  citizens  to  appropriate  to  itself  the  services  of 
the  remainder.  The  future  will  join  with  the  past, 
in  my  opinion,  in  showing  it  to  be  but  a  pleasing 
dream  that  the  selfishness  of  one  man  shall  so  neatly 
adjust  itself  to  the  selfishness  of  another  that  they 
will  perforce  live  together  as  brothers.  Brotherhood 
means  no  such  contrivance  ;  it  is  a  thing  of  the  heart, 
and  must  come  from  the  heart.  It  must  crown  our 
selfish  impulses  ;  it  can  never  spring  from  them.  It 
will  descend,  if  ever  it  does  descend  upon  the  earth, 
out  of  an  ideal  region,  and  rule  us,  if  it  does  rule 
us,  by  the  spell  and  might  of  its  ideal  beauty  and  its 
ideal  riglit. 

Hence,  the  significance  of  that  primary  aim  which 
Jesus  would  set  to  human  life,  —  namply,  to  seek  the 
"  kingdom  of  God."     How  little  of  reality  have  those 


SOME  FEATURES  OF  THE  ETHICS  OF  JESUS.     197 

words  to  us  now  !  —  I  mean,  not  merely  to  Liberals, 
but,  comparatively  speaking,  to  the  whole  modern 
Christian  world.  How  we  seek  to  turn  the  kingdom 
into  a  metaphor,  or  to  substitute  for  it  all  manner  of 
abstractions  !  Or  if  we  still  hold  to  its  concrete  sub- 
stance, how  we  put  the  divine  city  and  fellowship  afar 
off  in  the  clouds  and  to  the  end  of  time,  inwardly  say- 
ing that  it  is  well  enough  there,  but  cannot  be  seri- 
ously thought  of  as  giving  the  ideal  and  the  rule  for 
this  present  life  !  Accordingly,  the  present  enthusi- 
asms of  men,  so  far  as  they  have  any,  seem  so  meas- 
ured and  finite  ;  they  do  not  lift  us  to  any  height,  nor 
do  they  touch  our  depths.  Ah  !  to  have  lived  —  who 
does  not  at  times  wish  it  ?  —  when  the  measureless 
good  of  the  *' kingdom  of  God"  seemed  waiting  for 
men  to  enter  into  it;  when  human  life  was  lit  up  with 
the  transcendent  hope ;  when  heaven  seemed  about  to 
descend  and  touch  and  sanctify  the  earth  !  There  is 
no  wonder  that  the  multitude  of  those  early  believers 
were  of  one  heart  and  soul ;  that  not  one  of  them  said 
that  aught  of  the  things  he  possessed  was  his  own,  but 
they  had  all  things  common.  As  they  were  not  play- 
ing with  words,  but  believed  in  the  "kingdom  of  God,'^ 
how  could  they  forbear  to  live  in  some  measure  then, 
in  their  earthly  lives,  as  they  believed  they  should  live 
thereafter  ? 

The  phrase  "kingdom  of  God"  is  perhaps  outworn 
for  those  who  would  not,  under  a  cloak  and  venerable 
remnant  of  piety,  hide  the  light  that  is  in  them  ;  but 
the  thought  which  lies  at  its.  basis  is  of  perennial 
interest  and  worth.  Of  what  is  untrue  and  harmful 
in  the  Christian  conception  of  it,  I  may  speak  later. 
The  truth  underlying  it  may  be  stated  in  a  few  words : 


198  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

It  is  that  man  belongs  vitally  to  another  order  of 
things  than  that  of  which  he  has  experience.  He  can 
see  what  is,  and  at  the  same  time'  form  a  conception 
of  what  ought  to  be  ;  and  in  that  conception  he  finds 
the  goal  of  what  is  and  the  end  to  which  his  thoughts 
and  energies  rightfully  turn.  And  as  he  forms  this  con- 
ception in  virtue  of  the  rationality  that  is  in  him,  all 
rational  beings  can  form  it,  and,  as  matter  of  fact,  with 
varying  clearness  do  form  it ;  and  the  goal  is  thence 
a  goal  for  all  rational  beings.  Moreover,  the  goal  is 
of  nothing  that  is  absolutely  apart  from  those  who 
contemplate  it,  far  beyond  and  above  them  as  it  is ; 
it  is  a  goal  for  rational  beings,  and  is  nothing  more 
nor  less  than  that  of  a  perfect  society  or  community 
of  them.  Anciently  designated  a  kingdom,  we  now 
may  more  naturally  call  it  a  republic,  if  we  are  not 
thereby  made  to  forget  that  the  laws  of  it,  though 
in  one  sense  of  our  own  making,  are  in  another  sense 
set  for  us  in  the  ideal  nature  of  things  as  unalter- 
ably as  the  goal  itself.  For  us,  is  really  only  the 
creation  of  ourselves  after  the  ideal  pattern.  But  bet- 
ter still,  perhaps,  we  may  call  it  a  brotherhood,  since 
thereby  the  idea  of  association,  of  a  common  interest, 
a  common  life,  a  common  joy,  are  most  effectually  and 
most  touchingly  suggested  to  us.  There  is  a  yearn- 
ing in  our  human  nature  for  brotherhood.  We  are 
no  more  satisfied  with  the  modern  aim  of  self-culture 
than  with  the  older  one  of  the  salvation  of  our  indi- 
vidual souls.  We  want  in  our  deeper  moments  to  rise 
above  the  self,  the  individual,  and  feel  that  we  are 
parts  of  some  grander  whole,  some  nobler  society,  and 
that  we  have  in  it  a  more  than  private  mission  and 
work.     The  very  good  and  happiness  we  crave  we  do 


SOxME  FEATURES  OF  THE  ETHICS  OF  JESUS.     199 

not  wish  to  win  for  ourselves,  but  to  have  come  in 
consequence  of  our  world-connections,  to  be  a  kind 
of  bounty  and  answering  benediction  from  the  whole. 
This  only  is  religion,  when  the  law  for  me  is  the  law 
for  all ;  when  the  good  for  me  is  the  good  of  all ; 
when  the  tides  and  the  gladness  of  universal  being 
sweep  through  me,  and  I  know  it  is  no  longer  this 
poor  finite  self  that  lives,  but  the  world-self  that  lives 
in  me,  and  the  world-purpose  that  leads  me  on. 

And  so  truly  do  I  believe  the  "  kingdom  of  God " 
in  its  essential  meaning'  to  be  the  central  theme  of 
religion,  that  I  regard  some  fresh  apprehension  of  it, 
some  feeling  of  its  truth  so  real  and  deep  that  all 
uncertain  and  merely  traditional  language  shall  be 
avoided  in  publishing  it,  and  some  clear,  simple,  un- 
ambiguous statements  of  its  practical  meaning  in  con- 
nection with  to-day's  habits  of  thought  and  life,  to 
be  the  indispensable  preparation  for  a  Keligion  for 
the  Future.  And  in  this  sense  we  are  still  on  the 
foundation  of  the  prophets,  Jesus  himself  being  the 
corner-stone. 


XI. 

DOES  THE  ETHICS  OF  JESUS   SATISFY   THE 
NEEDS  OF  OUR  TIME? 

IT  is  impossible  to  forget  the  moral  services  which 
Judaism  and  Christianity  have  rendered  to  the 
world.  To  seek  to  relax  the  obligations  wliich  the 
old  religions  have  made  us  feel,  to  lower  or  anywise 
abate  from  the  loftiness  of  the  ideals  which  they  have 
given  to  the  world,  would  be  to  make  not  progress, 
but  retrogression.  Who  would  ignore  the  moral  in- 
sight and  heroism  of  an  Amos  or  an  Isaiah  ?  Who 
would  put  out  of  his  mind,  or  could  if  he  would,  the 
lessons  of  gentleness,  of  humility,  of  purity  of  mind, 
of  charity,  of  brotherhood,  which  fell  from  the  lips 
and  shone  out  in  the  life  of  the  Prophet  of  Nazareth? 
Surely,  not  by  forgetting,  but  by  treasuring  all  the 
good  the  past  has  won,  can  we  hope  to  advance  in 
the  future. 

None  the  less  must  the  advance  be  made ;  and  in 
truth  all  prophecy,  Jevrish  and  Christian  included, 
has  a  temporary  as  well  as  a  permanent  element. 
Jesus  spoke  to  those  of  his  time,  and  with  the  lan- 
guage and  the  thought  —  and  we  may  add  with  the 
limitations  —  of  his  time.  But  the  time  and  the 
language  and  the  thought  of  men  change,  and  wider 
horizons  are  opened  to  their  minds.  What  is  the 
voice  of  prophecy  for  to-day  ?  is  the  question.     All 


DOES  THE  ETHICS   OE  JESUS  SATISFY?       201 

in  vain  would  it  be  for  me  to  assume  the  prophetic 
attitude.  The  prophet  does  not  raise  questions,  —  he 
answers  them.  He  has  none  of  that  hesitating,  ten- 
tative spirit  and  method  which  mark  the  thought  of 
even  the  best  men  of  this  transition  age,  and  which 
will  only  cease  when  the  new  age  shall  have  come, 
and  the  fire  of  irresistible  convictions  shall  once  more 
burn  in  the  human  breast.  I  am  but  a  questioner 
along  with  the  rest.  I  but  seek  to  turn  the  attention 
toward  the  needs  and  problems  of  the  present,  and  to 
show  that  they  at  least  call  for  distinct  answers  and 
solutions,  such  as  we  look  for  in  vain  in  the  teaching 
of  Jesus.  For  though  I  am  far  from  denying,  but 
rather  have  asserted,  that  Jesus  taught  eternal  prin- 
ciples, I  must  add  that  we  want  more  than  this  ;  we 
want  the  application  of  the  principles  to  the  issues 
and  questions  of  to-day,  and  in  a  form  apprehensible 
to  the  thought  of  to-day.  Else,  as  has  been  said,  the 
principles  may  become  as  barren  as  they  are  old.^ 
Nothing  is  so  common  in  these  days  as  seeming  rever- 
ence for  the  great  rules  of  righteousness,  along  with 
ignorance  of  or  indifference  to  what  they  mean  and 
exact  in  the  conduct  of  life.  We  want  to  make  this 
impossible,  save  with  a  distinct  consciousness  of  hy- 
pocrisy. Yes,  sometimes  those  who  themselves  most 
sincerely  and  impressively  utter  the  great  ideas  are 
unconscious  of  the  full  sweep  of  their  application. 
The   personage    in    Terence's    play   who   utters   the 

^  Conscience,  righteousness,  what  is  there  new  in  these  ?  Tlicir 
maxims  are  as  old  as  tlie  hills.  Truly,  and  as  barren  often  as  the 
rocks.  Tlie  novelty  of  righteousness  is  not  in  itself,  but  in  its 
novel  application  to  the  particular  unrighteousness  of  a  particular 
age.  —  Felix  Adler  :   Creed  and  Deed,  p.  164. 


202  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

famous  sentiment,  "Homo  sum,  humani  nihil  a  me 
alienum  puto,"  has  no  horror  at  infanticide,  and  calls 
it  irrational  to  keep  a  child  alive  who  is  in  danger  of 
growing  up  into  a  career  of  shame.-^  I  do  not  cite  it 
as  a  parallel  case ;  but  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that 
Jesus  who  utters  the  Golden  Kule,  which  adequately 
interpreted  would  put  an  end  perhaps  to  all  the  ills 
of  society,  makes  no  condemnation  of  slavery ;  and 
this,  though  a  party  existed  in  his  day  which  had 
reached  a  height  of  moral  development  from  which 
it  was  condemned, — the  Essenes.  Hence,  **  Chris- 
tian ethics "  could  be  of  slight  service  in  the  late 
Antislavery  struggles  in  our  land.  There  is  nothing 
in  the  New  Testament  inconsistent  with  the  main- 
tenance of  slavery,  if  only  masters  are  guilty  of  no 
wilful  oppression  or  inhumanity.  It  was  only  by 
going  back  to  principles  of  which  Christian  ethics 
themselves  are  but  a  partial  statement,  and  which 
strangely  enough  have  found  modern  expression  in 
that  philosophy  of  human  rights  to  which  the  Chris- 
tian Church  has  as  often  taken  an  attitude  of  hos- 
tility as  of  sympathy,  that  the  way  was  prepared  for 
the  abolition  of  slavery  in  this  country. 

What  then,  let  us  ask  generally,  though  without 
essaying  any  kind  of  formal  completeness,  are  some 
of  the  moral  needs  of  our  time  ? 

1.  First,  I  will  mention  that  of  intellectual  scrupu- 
lousness and  honesty.  It  ^vas  an  old  Eoman  saying 
that  "two  augurs  could  never  meet  each  other  with- 
out laughing."  I  doubt  if  there  is  any  intellectual 
vice  to-day  so  flagrant  or  coarse  as  this.  I  have  rather 
in  mind  what  may  seem  to  many  light  faults,  —  for 
1  Lecky,  History  of  Morals,  ii.  30,  n. 


DOES  THE  ETHICS  OF  JESUS  SATISFY?      203 

example,  putting  interpretations  on  doctrines  not  in 
accordance  witli  their  natural  meaning,  conforming  to 
usages  after  the  ideas  at  their  basis  have  ceased  to  be 
matters  of  conviction,  staying  in  a  church  or  denomi- 
nation on  sufferance  and  not  because  of  a  hearty 
common  belief  with  them.  Doubtless  this  is  often 
done  with  good  intentions,  and  some  good  may  be 
mingled  with  it  as  with  all  evil ;  but  it  strikes  at 
what  is  of  priceless  value  —  I  might  say,  rather,  of 
absolute  necessity  —  to  the  religious  teaclier ;  namely, 
the  full  heart  and  the  consciousness  of  entire  ve- 
racity. Experience  proves,  too,  that  doctrines  and 
institutions  which  require  this  kind  of  support  are 
themselves  on  the  downward  road ;  and  the  process 
of  decay  can  at  the  best  be  stayed,  and  may  even  at 
times  (as  if  in  irony  of  our  equivocal  intentions)  be 
hastened,  by  the  use  of  such  means.  Carlyle  is  said 
to  have  pointed  out  Dean  Stanley  to  a  friend,  and 
remarked,  "There  goes  our  friend  the  Dean,  boring 
holes  hi  the  bottom  of  the  good  ship  Church  of  Eng- 
land, —  and  does  n't  know  it ! "  ^ 

Yet  not  of  the  uselessness  of  the  compromising 
spirit,  but  of  the  fact  that  it  is  contrary  to  a  true 
standard  of  intellectual  honor,  would  I,  speak.  Not 
a  few  have  apparently  yet  to  get  the  idea  that  the 
intellect  as  well  as  the  will  and  outward  life  is  under 
law ;  that  they  are  not  at  liberty  to  believe  what  they 
like ;  that  conviction  is  only  honorable  as  it  is  only 
possible  in  any  strength,  when  formed  in  obedience 
to  some  kind  of  necessity.  I  do  not  wonder  that  with 
such  notions  men  deem  ethics  too  small  a  thing  to 

1  The  anecdote  is  related  by  G.  W.  S.  in  the  New  York 
"  Tribune  "  (semi-weekly),  Feb.  25, 1881. 


204  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

become  religion.  It  is  too  small,  when  so  partially  un- 
derstood. But  ethics  really  means  whatever  ought  to 
he,  and  hence  is  not  without  bearing  on  every  part  of 
life  ;  it  holds  up  an  idea  for  the  intellect  as  well  as 
the  outward  actions,  and  searches  the  most  hidden 
motives  and  processes  of  the  soul  of  man.  "Thou 
shoLildst  believe  the  truth,"  it  says  ;  ''  and  thou  mayst 
not  twist  it  to  thy  liking,  or  anywise  play  with  it;  and 
the  truth  must  be  according  to  thine  own  reason,  else 
thou  art  guilty  of  profaning  the  holiest  within  thee." 
And  yet  the  evil  is  not  one  that  can  be  met  by  any 
precept.  It  is  a  secret  spirit,  and  can  only  be  met 
by  another  spirit,  which  shall,  as  it  were  by  magic, 
put  health  and  soundness  into  the  whole  intellectual 
nature.  It  is  the  spirit  of  downrightness,  of  absolute 
and  utter  sincerity.  If  such  a  spirit  should  get  abroad 
in  the  community,  it  would  turn  many  a  young  man 
from  the  easy,  compromising  course  he  is  now  con- 
templating, and  empty  churches  of  not  a  few  who 
listen  as  well  as  of  some  who  preach. 

A  new  seriousness  is  needed  in  all  our  thinking. 
Men  play  w^ith  phrases,  and  think  if  they  can  use  the 
same  words,  differences  of  thought  need  not  seriously 
concern  thenr.  They  build  enormous  conclusions  on 
the  slenderest  premises,  and  assume  to  know  on  the 
ground  of  positive  science,  for  example,  what  never 
was  so  learned,  materialism  being  often  as  assumptive 
and  headlong  as  the  opposite  way  of  thinking.  Or 
perhaps  the  ground  of  rational  thought  is.  abandoned, 
and  by  will  or  arbitrary  faith,  or  for  some  species  of 
subjective  interest,  a  settlement  of  philosophical  prob- 
lems is  assumed  to  be  reached. 

What,  now,  have  we  in  the   ethics  of  Jesus   that 


DOES  THE   ETHICS  OF  JESUS   SATISFY?       205 

can  be  distinctly  felt  by  men  to  have  a  bearing  upon 
this  lack  of  straightforwardness,  this  arbitrariness, 
not  to  say  dishonesty  in  matters  of  the  intellect  ?  It 
is  hard  to  find  anything.  I  do  not  mean  that  Jesus 
positively  slights  the  intellectual  virtues,  and  I  do 
not  agree  with  those  who  put  this  interpretation  on 
the  first  beatitude.  It  is  simply  that  he  does  not 
take  any  account  of  them  ;  that  there  is  not  a  sin- 
gle passage,  to  my  recollection,  in  wdiich  he  makes 
any  emphatic  statement  concerning  them  ;  and  let  it 
be  remembered  it  is  such  distinct  utterance  that  the 
moral  haziness  of  the  present  time  calls  for.  The  rea- 
son of. the  silence  of  Jesus  is  not  far  to  seek.  The 
duty  of  man  was  simpler  in  that  day,  because  life  itself 
was  simpler  and  the  horizon  of  man  narrower.  More- 
over, the  supernatural  order,  it  was  conceived,  would 
soon  break  in  upon  the  natural ;  and  only  the  primal 
duties  of  the  heart  and  life  were  emphasized.  Science 
and  criticism  were  not  as  now  breaking  up  an  old 
view  of  the  world ;  and  so  far  as  the  time  was  transi- 
tional, it  was  conceived  to  be  simply  toward  the  com- 
pletion and  practical  realization  of  a  view  which  had 
long  had  currency.  At  the  present  time,  our  views 
of  Nature  and  of  man  are  being  in  many  ways  radi- 
cally recast ;  nothing  less  than  a  new  philosophy,  a 
new  general  view  of  the  world,  seems  to  be  in  process 
of  development,  and  never  before  was  there  such  oc- 
casion for  the  exercise  of  severe  intellectual  virtue. 
As  matter  of  fact  the  ethics  of  the  intellect,  instead 
of  being  taught  by  the  followers  of  Jesus,  are  most 
impressively  displayed  by  those  whom  Christian  teach- 
ers have  generally  thought  it  their  duty  to  oppose 
or  rebuke  :  I  mean  the  students  and  investigators  in 


206  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

science  and  history.  I  am  no  believer  in  the  all- 
sufficingness  of  science,  or  in  the  finality  of  the  les- 
sons of  history;  yet  the  researches  of  students  in 
these  departments  have  in  many  cases  illustrated  to 
us  an  open-mindedness,  an  eagerness  and  reverence 
for  truth,  and  a  simple  faithfulness  of  utterance  that 
make  a  model  for  the  conduct  of  all  thinking.  A 
lesson  in  morals,  in  ideal  scrupulousness,  is  conveyed 
by  every  genuine  scientific  investigation,  and  by  none 
more  notably  than  those  of  the  revolutionizer  of  our 
views  of  Nature,  the  foremost  scientific  figure  of  the 
century,  Charles  Darwin.  Let  the  same  openness,  the 
same  fearlessness  of  investigation,  the  same  virility 
of  thought,  and  the  same  exact  'correspondence  of 
word  to  thought  characterize  our  religious  thinking, 
and  a  revolution  of  equal  consequence  in  this  depart- 
ment of  human  interest  will  be  the  result. 

*2,  T  turn  now  to  the  need  of  higher  political  con- 
ceptions and  morality/.  The  State  is  not  merely,  as 
some  would  have  it,  a  necessary  evil,  but  has  a  sacred, 
I  might  almost  say,  a  religious  character  and  mission. 
One  of  its  functions  is,  indeed,  to  prevent  violence,  to 
restrain  passion,  to  act  as  society's  police.  As  the 
law  of  gravitation  keeps  the  planets  in  their  courses 
and  binds  every  atom  to  every  other,  so  outwardly,  at 
least,  the  State  is  to  maintain  a  similar  order  among 
men.  But,  far  more  and  higher  than  this,  the  State  is 
a  Commonwealth,  and  is  to  secure  the  ends  needful 
for  all.  Each  man  has  an  individual  sphere  of  action, 
where  he  is  responsible  only  to  himself ;  but  when  his 
action  touches  the  interest  of  another,  he  has  another 
responsibility,  — namely,  to  the  State.  The  State 
must  see  that  in  matters  and  affairs  where  the  ends 


DOES   THE   ETHICS   OF   JESUS  SATISFY?       207 

of  the  many  are  affected,  those  ends  are  not  made 
impossible  of  realization  ;  it  cannot  allow  individuals 
or  combinations  of  individuals  to  win  advantages  at 
the  expense  and  to  the  loss  of  others.  Particularly 
in  our  own  country,  where  ideas  of  equality  are  at 
the  basis  of  the  political  system,  is  such  practical 
injustice  out  of  place.  We  have  dispossessed  kings 
and  priests  of  their  rights  over  us  ;  we  have  a  govern- 
ment of  the  people.  The  question  is.  Shall  it  be  a 
government  for  the  people  ?  I  do  not  mean  a  class 
called  by  that  name,  but  for  all.  Shall  the  common, 
the  universal  good  be  secured,  and  no  individual  free- 
dom or  rights  be  allowed  which  tend  to  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  freedom  and  rights  of  others  ?  These 
questions  must  be  answered,  one  way  or  another,  in 
the  next  century  of  our  national  existence  ;  and  if 
the  choice  were  between  a  religion  of  the  old  sort  and 
a  politics  intent  on  giving  them  a  righteous  answer, 
I  see  not  how  any  generous-minded  young  man  could 
hesitate  to  choose  the  service  of  the  State.  There  is 
a  touch  of  religion  in  all  unselfish  devotion  to  public 
ends,  and  it  is  just  such  devotion  that  is  the  crying 
political  need  of  our  time.  The  question  of  better 
civil  service  is  at  bottom  nothing  else. 

But  what  are  the  lessons  which  the  Christian  Gos- 
pels read  us  in  political  morality  ?  The  political 
ideas  of  Jesus  are  a  strange  contrast  to  anything  we 
know  of  by  experience.  His  land  was  a  Eoman 
province.  There  is  no  evidence  that  he  did  not  love 
it,  and  every  reason  to  believe  that  his  feeling  for  it 
was  strong  and  deep.  But  his  method  of  political 
redemption  was  one  of  which  we  in  these  days  can 
scarcely  entertain  the  idea.     It  was  not  indeed  politi- 


208  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

cal  redemption,  but  rather  deliverance  at  the  hand  of 
one  from  whom  emperors  and  empires  derive  their 
powers,  and  who,  though  the  Lord  of  the  whole  earth, 
was  in  a  special  sense  the  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac, 
and  Jacob.  Do  we  suppose  that  the  nobler  motive 
which  leads  men  into  the  service  of  the  State,  —  the 
passion  for  justice  and  the  common  weal,  —  was  ab- 
sent from  the  breast  of  Jesus  ?  Rather  can  our  sense 
of  justice  be  nowhere  better  refreshed  than  by  drink- 
ing in  his  words ;  nowhere  has  the  tenderness  for  the 
least  among  men  been  more  strikingly  shown  than  in 
the  memorials  left  us  of  his  sacred  life.  If  justice 
w^as  not  to  come  from  the  State,  it  was,  as  he  believed, 
to  come  from  a  higher  than  the  State ;  if  not  through 
blundering  human  instrumentalities,  it  w^as  to  come 
through  the  heaven-sent  "  Son  of  Man,'^  before  whom 
and  his  angel  ministers  all  mankind  would  soon  be 
gathered.  Christian  men  and  women  lived  on  this 
faith  in  the  early  time,  and  nothing  is  more  pathetic 
in  history  than  the  story  of  its  gradually  fading  out 
of  human  souls.  Even  now  one  will  find  it  in  the 
creeds  ;  and  a  slight  sense  of  the  old  awe  and  the  old 
triumph  may  perchance  come  over  us  as  we  listen  to 
the  chanting  of  the  Te  Deiim,  that  chiefest  of  Chris- 
tian hymns,  and  hear  the  words,  "We  believe  that 
thou  shalt  come  to  be  our  Judge ;  ^^  but  such  confes- 
sions are  on  the  lips  rather  than  in  the  hearts  of  the 
worshippers. 

Accordingly  nothing  is  so  lightly  and  even  apologeti- 
cally treated  by  liberal  Christian  critics  and  teachers 
as  this-  primitive  and  alwaj's,  at  least,  professed  Chris- 
tian belief.  Yet  it  is  no  accident,  no  bit  of  Oriental 
coloring,  however  much  of  this  there  may  be  in  filling 


DOES  THE  ETHICS  OF   JESUS   SxVTISFY?      2C9 

out  the  details  of  the  final  scene,  but  the  climax  and 
consummation  of  the  Christian  view  of  the  world,  — 
an  answer  to  that  deep  question  of  man's  heart,  which 
is  not  merely  what  are  the  just  and  the  good,  but 
hoiv  are  they  to  be  accomplished  ;  how  is  an  actual 
end  to  be  made  of  injustice  and  wrong.  Religion 
will  dawn  anew  on  the  world  when  the  old  problem 
again  mightily  engages  us,  and  another  and  equally 
wide-reaching  answer  is  won.  The  problem  is  justice, 
—  the  bringing  to  every  one  the  means  and  opportu- 
nity for  the  highest  and  best  things.  To  every  one,  — 
this  is  the  very  meaning  of  justice.  The  highest  and 
best  things  are  not  for  you  or  for  me,  or  for  any  sort 
or  class  of  men,  but  for  all :  they  are  the  end,  the 
right,  the  ideal  destiny  of  every  human  being.  But  if 
this  is  the  problem,  Jesus'  method  of  solving  it  is  no 
longer  capable  of  belief.  In  simple  honest}^,  it  must  be 
said  to  belong  to  the  category  of  humanity's  blighted 
hopes.  The  "  Son  of  Man,"  who  was  to  come  so  soon, 
has  not  come  in  all  these  centuries  to  bring  the  prom- 
ised redemption  :  the  very  idea  of  his  coming  belongs 
to  a  way  of  thinking  now  outgrown. 

Since  Jesus  believed  in  the  impossible,  he  outlined 
for  us  no  really  practicable  way  of  reaching  the  de- 
sired end.  He  was  not  concerned  with  the  State, 
indicating  neither  ideal  nor  practical  course  for  it  to 
follow.  A  similar  indifference  to  and  unbelief  in  what 
is  to  us  practicable  is  shown  in  the  writings  of  the 
Christian  Fathers.  Tertullian,  early  in  the  third  cen- 
tury, says  that  "  nothing  is  more  remote  from  his 
interests   than  public   affairs."  ^     Lecky  remarks   of 

^  Ncc  uUa  res  aliena  rnagis  quam  publica.  —  Apology^  chap. 
xxxviii. 

14 


210  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

Saint  Cyprian  (who  belongs  a  little  later  in  the  same 
century)  that  ^^the  conception  of  a  converted  empire 
never  appears  to  have  flashed  across  the  mind  of  the 
saint :  the  only  triumph  he  predicted  for  the  Church 
was  that  of  another  world."  ^  Saint  Augustine,  a  cen- 
tury later,  pathetically  asks,  "  What  difference  can  it 
make  to  a  man  who  is  about  to  die  whose  government 
he  lives  under,  if  only  there  is  no  compulsion  to  im- 
piety and  injustice  ?  "  ^  His  great  work,  from  which 
this  quotation  is  made,  was  intended  to  show,  accord- 
ing to  Lecky,*  that  the  "city  of  God"  was  not  to  be 
on  earth,  and  that  the  downfall  of  the  empire,  under 
barbarian  invasions,  need  not  trouble  his  fellow  Chris- 
tians. If  we  wish  a  worthy  conception  of  the  mission 
of  the  State,  we  shall  find  it  in  the  old  heathen  phi- 
losophers and  emperors  and  lawyers  rather  than  in 
Jesus  or  his  followers.  Marcus  Aurelius,  says  Lecky, 
"made  it  his  aim  to  realize  the  conception  of  a  free 
State  in  which  all  citizens  are  equal,  and  of  a  royalty 
which  makes  it  its  first  duty  to  respect  the  liberty  of 
the  citizens."*  "Slavery,"  says  the  Eoman  lawyer 
Morentinus,  is  "  a  custom  of  the  law  of  nations,  by 
which  one  man,  contrary  to  the  law  of  Nature,  is  sub- 
jected to  the  dominion  of  another."  "  As  far  as 
natural  law  is  concerned,"  said  another  (Ulpian),  "  all 
men  are  equal."  "By  natural  law,"  again,  "all  men 
are  born  free." 

1  History  of  Morals,  i.  485. 

2  De  Civitate  Dei,  v.  17,  —  "Quid  interest  sub  cujus  imperio 
vivat  homo  moriturus,  si  illi  qui  imperant,  ad  impia  et  iniquia  non 
cogent." 

3  Morals,  i.  435. 

*  Morals,  i.  264.    Cf.  M.  Aureliu8*s  Meditations,  i.  14. 


DOES  THE   ETHICS   OF  JESUS  SATISFY?       211 

These  conceptions,  with  all  that  they  imply,  were 
never  taken  up  by  the  Church  ;  and  the  work  of  giv- 
ing them  effect  through  the  State  is  a  far  more  diffi- 
cult one  than  that  of  trusting  and  praying  for  the 
*'  kingdom  of  God,"  as  the  Church  has  done.  We  are 
now  coming  to  feel  that  if  justice  is  to  be  done  in 
this  world  (and  perhaps  equally  in  any  other),  it  is 
we  (that  is,  rational  beings)  who  must  do  it,  that  pray- 
ing for  its  accomplishment  is  but  wasted  energy ;  that 
its  very  sacredness  commands  that  we  cease  all  such 
trifling  with  it  as  prayer  has  now  come  to  be,  and 
give  it  a  seat  in  our  own  hearts  and  an  execution  in 
oar  laws  and  institutions.  Man  is  to  inherit  the 
sanctity  and  the  glory  that  were  to  invest  the  "  Son 
of  Man,"  sitting  on  his  judgment-seat.  For,  I  take 
it,  the  doing  of  justice  is  a  sacred  thing.  There  is  a 
divinity  hedging  about  every  king  or  judge  or  magis- 
trate or  private  citizen  who  takes  this  task  into  his 
hands.  For  though  justice  as  a  reality  in  human 
conduct  and  government  is  a  poor  shifting  thing,  the 
demand  for  it  is  eternal,  and  issues  not  from  man,  nor 
from  the  earth,  nor  from  the  stars,  but  from  somewhat 
older  than  they  ;  and  he  who  executes  it  acts  in  that 
moment  as  the  delegate  of  God. 

A  new  reverence  for  the  State  we  want,  then,  — 
not  the  blind  submission,  not  the  passive  obedience 
which  has  so  often  been  the  attitude  enjoined  upon 
Christians,  but  a  reverence  for  the  mission  of  the 
State,  for  its  idea ;  a  reverence  which  shall  recognize 
the  dignity  of  the  servants  of  the  State,  which  shall 
demand  that  all  legislation  and  administration  shall 
in  increasing  measure  fulfil  the  demands  of  the  idea; 
a  reverence  which  shall  thus  be  the  source  of  prog- 


212  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

ress,  and  not  the  support  of  unreasoning  conserva- 
tism. A  new  patriotism  we  want,  not  as  an  append- 
age, but  as  a  part  of  ethics  and  religion.  Here  is 
not  merely  where  we  eat  and  sleep  and  work  and 
travel,  but  this  land  is  a  field  of  duty ;  here  we  are 
stationed,  hfere  we  have  a  task.  We  are  linked  to 
a  larger  whole  than  our  family  or  the  circle  of  our 
business  interests.  For  public  ends  we  are  to  live. 
The  public  service  must  come  to  have  a  dignity  and 
honor  in  our  eyes  such  as  no  work  on  private  ac- 
count can  have ;  and  we  shall  enter  it,  if  to  this 
we  are  called,  as  priests  might  enter  a  temple,  and 
with  thoughts  as  religious  as  theirs.  The  more  do 
we  need  a  new  patriotism,  since  as  men  are  now  so 
largely  studying  the  past,  considering  what  has  been 
rather  than  what  may  and  ought  to  be,  and  learn- 
ing that  free  institutions  have  so  often  failed,  a  kind 
of  scholarly  scepticism  is  arising  as  to  the  future 
of  this  land,  if  not,  indeed,  a  distrust  of  our  funda- 
mental doctrine  of  the  rights  of  man.  It  is  a  great 
experiment,  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  history, — 
this  giving  of  the  sovereign  power  equally  into  the 
hands  of  all  citizens  j  and  those  who  will  have  cer- 
tain proof  of  success  before  they  act  must  halt  and 
tremble,  if  not  sigh  for  other  times.  But  those  who 
have  it  in  their  blood  to  believe  in  the  experiment 
wdll,  by  their  very  belief,  help  to  carry  it  on  to  tri- 
umph. American  patriotism  is  more  than  attachment 
to  this  land  of  ours :  it  is  attachment  to  an  idea,  it 
is  belief  in  a  cause,  —  the  cause  of  liberty  and  hu- 
man rights ;  and  for  the  issue  every  one  of  us  has  a 
measure  of  responsibility. 

The  State  itself  must  also  advance.    It  must  assume 


DOES  THE  ETHICS   OF   JESUS   SATISFY?       213 

new  duties,  —  new,  that  is,  not  to  its  mission,  but  to 
its  past  performance.  Freedom  is  good,  but  it  must 
be  universal ;  and  if  my  freedom  tends  to  the  destruc- 
tion of  another's,  mine  must  be  limited.  What  makes 
the  right  of  the  State  to  interfere  and  prevent  domes- 
tic slavery  ?  What  but  its  very  mission  to  secure 
and  maintain  the  personal  rights  of  every  one  within 
its  borders  ?  Are  there  then  no  other  encroachments 
of  the  naturally  stronger  over  the  naturally  weaker  ? 
I  will  not  now  undertake  to  answer  this  question 
specifically ;  but  wherever  there  is  a  tendency  of  this 
sort ;  wherever  one  man  or  a  set  of  men  get  property 
in  land  or  means  of  transportation  or  instruments  of 
production  or  the  means  of  subsistence,  to  such  an  ex- 
tent as  to  place  others  largely  at  their  mercy, — there 
the  State  should  interfere,  and,  whether  by  legisla- 
tion or  actual  administration  in  its  own  name,  prevent 
the  mono[)oly,  and  act  for  the  good  of  all.  The  State 
with  us  is  not,  as  it  often  was  in  old  time,  the  rule  of 
the  stronger  over  the  weaker  :  if  it  were,  it  would 
have  no  sanctity  or  defence ;  if  it  should  become  so, 
then  revolution  would  be  commanded.  The  State  is 
for  justice,  — to  see  to  it  that  the  strong  do  not  rule 
the  weak,  to  break  the  force  of  the  brute  struggle  for 
existence.  Most  ominous  of  all  would  be  the  future  of 
that  State  wherein  freedom  should  be  ostensibly  hon- 
ored, and  yet  in  the  very  name  of  freedom  the  bonds 
of  servitude  be  put  on  men,  women,  and  children  ;  ^ 
wherein  freedom  would  thus  mean  a  freedom  from 
law,  from  State  examination  and  supervision,  and  be 

1  Cf.  John  Stuart  Mill  (Political  Economy,  ii.  579):  "Frecriom 
of  contract,  in  the  case  of  children,  is  but  another  word  for  free- 
dom of  coercion." 


214  ^  ETHICAL  RELIGIOK 

only  a  specious  cloak  behind  which  men  might  pursue 
their  worst  seltishness. 

A  very  different  spirit  must  animate  the  new  re- 
ligion from  that  which  animated  the  old.  The  Stoic 
maxim  and  not  that  implied  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
must  furnish  the  rule  for  human  life :  "  The  wise 
man  must  take  part  in  public  life/'  —  TroXiTeveo-Oat  t6v 
crocf^ov.  For  through  the  State  rather  than  through 
any  mythical  judgment  in  the  clouds,  the  ends  of 
justice  and  right  are  in  an  important  measure  to 
be  worked  out. 

3.  But  if  we  have  need  of  a  new  political  morality, 
very  closely  related  thereto  is  our  need  of  a  new  in- 
dustrial  ethics.  While  the  State  should  to  my  mind 
include  economy  to  a  certain  extent,  so  that  there 
might  be  some  meaning  in  the  phrase  ''  ijolitical  econ- 
omy," —  and  hence  the  true  tendency  is  toward  the 
assumption,  or  at  least  direction,  by  the  State  of  such 
properties  and  businesses  as  become  large  and  public 
in  their  influences,  — the  time  is  yet  far  distant  when 
a  perfect  and  detailed  and  particular  justice  can  be 
prescribed  or  done  by  the  State.  In  any  case,  indus- 
try may,  relatively  speaking,  be  treated  as  a  separate 
topic.  We  live  from  day  to  day  by  our  own  industry 
or  by  that  of  others ;  for  I  mean  by  industry  not  all 
kinds  of  pursuits,  but  those  which  aim  to  satisfy  our 
physical  needs  and  provide  for  our  material  comfort. 
Industrial  concerns  are  those  which  touch  us  to  the 
quick  :  a  disorder  here  means  so  much  less  bread  for 
some  one  to  eat,  so  much  of  an  increase  in  the  death- 
rate.  Society  has  always  been  partially,  I  may  say 
largely,  made  up  of  those  whose  only  means  of  com- 
manding the  necessaries,  not  to  say  the  comforts,  of 


DOES   THE  ETHICS  OF   JESUS   SATISFY?       215 

life  lay  in  their  hands  and  arms,  either  by  way  of 
labor  or  of  threatening.  I  say  always,  yet  I  do  not 
say  necessarily ;  and  here  is  the  whole  point.  There 
are  doubtless  native  inequalities  among  men,  and  there 
always  will  be.  But  the  true  industrial  order  would 
be  one  in  which  the  inequalities  would  mutually  sup- 
plement one  another,  according  to  an  ideal  law  of  jus- 
tice and  humanity.  This  ideal  order  does  not  however 
belong  to  history,  but  to  the  future,  — society  did  not 
fall  from  it,  but  is  to  rise  to  it ;  and  the  call  to  rise  to 
it  is  felt  to  lie  in  the  very  nature  and  constitution  of 
humanity,  whenever  it  sees  through  its  muddy  vesture 
of  brutality  and  selfishness,  and  becomes  aware  of  the 
beatings  of  its  own  heart. 

The  ideal  order  is,  in  a  word,  co-operation.  It 
means  for  those  engaged  in  the  production  of  any 
means  of  subsistence  or  comfort  that  they  seek  no 
more  than  a  fair  profit  from  the  communit}^  which 
they  serve,  and  that  they  divide  the  profit  fairly  among 
themselves.  There  is  apparently  little  thought  of 
fairness  and  justice  in  the  present  industrial  arrange- 
ments. Services  are  doubtless  done  both  to  the  com- 
munity and  by  the  employer  to  the  employed,  as  by 
the  employed  to  the  employer;  but  the  simple  fact 
that  business  is  ordinarily  undertaken  for  "  profit,"  or, 
as  is  said,  with  "  business  motives,"  shows  that  fair- 
ness or  equitableness,  not  to  say  humanity,  are  not  the 
determining  motives. 

The  upward  limit  of  the  employer's  prices  is  not 
ordinarily  any  thought  of  justice,  but  the  knowledge 
of  what  can  or  will  be  paid.  And  the  wages  he  is 
apt  to  pay  go  as  high,  not  as  considerations  of  jus- 
tice would  suggest,  but  as  the  demands  of  the  labor- 


216  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

ers  can  make  them  go,  and  sink  as  low  as  men  or 
women  —  and  perhaps  children  —  can  be  found  who 
will  take  them.  *'  The  very  idea,"  says  John  Stuart 
Mill,  "'of  distributive  justice,  or  of  any  proportional- 
ity between  success  and  merit,  or  between  success  and 
exertion,  is  in  the  present  state  of  society  so  mani- 
festly chimerical  as  to  be  relegated  to  the  regions 
of  romance."  ^  A  reviewer  naively  remarks,  "  The  at- 
tempt of  writers  like  Bastiat  to  show  an  exact  har- 
mony between  the  rules  of  political  economy  and  the 
demands  of  absolute  justice  involves,  like  the  opposite 
error  of  Mr.  Froude,  a  confusion  between  economical 
rules  and  moral  precepts."  ^  That  is,  in  j)lain  words, 
economy  is  one  thing,  and  ethics  quite  another ;  and 
by  the  '^  opposite  error  of  Mr.  Froude  "  was  probably 
meant  a  demand  on  his  part  that  there  be  an  infusion 
of  ethics  into  economy,  which  is  at  least  more  hon- 
orable, and  I  believe  more  likely  to  succeed,  than  the 
attempt  of  those  who  would  defend  and  justify  the 
present  industrial  arrangements  on  the  ground  not 
only  that  they  are  rooted  '•  in  the  nature  of  things," 
but  that  they  always  mean  "service  for  service."^ 
Service  for  service  ?  In  words,  yes ;  but  what  not  only 
of  the  intention,  but  of  the  equity  of  the  exchange  ? 
Suppose  that  I  succor  a  drowning  man,  and  before 
doing  so,  exact  of  him  the  greater  part  of  his  posses- 
sions. That  is  undoubtedly  service  for  service  ;  his 
life  he  plainly  values  more  than  his  possessions.     But 

^  Chapters  on  Socialism. 

2  Tiie  Nation,  Oct.  4,  1877,  p.  216. 

3  Cf.  article  on  the  identity  of  "  Private  Wenlth  and  Public 
Welfare,"  by  Hon.  Edward  Atkinson,  in  Unitarian  Review,  Decem- 
ber, 1881. 


DOES  THE  ETHICS  OF  JESUS  SATISFY?       217 

what  should  you  say  of  my  exaction  ?  So  there  are 
those  who  take  the  possessions  of  men  to-day,  often 
the  entire  possessions,  —  for  myriads  possess  little  or 
nothing  but  strength  of  hand  and  limb,  —  and  in 
return  give  them  but  the  bare  means  of  subsistence. 
0  precious  Equity  ! 

A  new  ethics  of  industry  must  arise ;  or,  I  might 
almost  say,  ethics  must  be  now  applied  for  the  first 
time  in  this  department  of  human  activity.  What 
does  the  ethics  of  Jesus  give  us  in  this  direction  ? 
In  truth,  if  we  turn  from  the  ideas  of  our  time  to 
those  of  Jesus,  it  is  almost  like  going  from  one  world 
into  another.  Did  he  not  feel  for  poverty  ?  Yes ;  his 
sympathies  were  boundless.  But  his  remedy  for  it, 
aside  from  gifts  of  charity,  indicates  a  notion  of  provi- 
dence, of  the  relation  between  man  and  God,  that 
may  at  times  adorn  a  poem  or  a  tale,  but  has  lost  all 
hold  upon  our  sober  belief.  It  was  not  so  much  even 
individual  toil  and  labor  as  trust,  — belief  that  as  we 
are  of  more  value  than  the  sparrows,  so  we  shall  be 
no  less  provided  for  than  they.  Consider  the  birds, 
he  said,  that  neither  reap  nor  gather  into  barns ;  the 
lilies,  that  neither  toil  nor  spin  !  How  strangely  con- 
trasted with  this  idyllic  view  of  the  world  is  that  to 
which  we  in  recent  years  have  become  accustomed  ! 
The  language  of  Darwin  is  here  better  than  any  para- 
phrase :  "  We  behold,"  he  says,  "  the  face  of  ^Nature 
bright  with  gladness  ;  we  often  see  superabundance 
of  food.  We  do  not  see,  or  we  forget,  that  the  birds 
which  ar^idly  singing  round  us  mostly  live  on  insects 
or  seeds,  and  are  thus  constantly  destroying  life ;  or 
we  forget  how  largely  these  songsters,  or  their  eggs, 
or  their  nestlings,  are  destroyed  by  birds  and  beasts 


218  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

of  prey.  We  do  not  always  bear  in  mind  that  though 
food  may  now  be  superabundant,  it  is  not  so  at  all 
seasons  of  each  year.  ...  I  estimated/'  he  says  again, 
"  chiefly  from  the  greatly  reduced  number  of  nests 
in  the  spring,  that  the  winter  of  1854-55  destroyed 
four-fifths  of  the  birds  in  my  own  grounds."  ^  The 
fact  is  that  the  "heavenly  Father,"  of  whom  Jesus 
spoke,  probably  denies  food  and  protection  to  more  of 
his  creatures  than  he  actually  provides  for ;  if  he  did 
not,  the  earth  would  soon  be  covered  by  the  progeny 
of  any  single  pair  of  them.  Hence,  there  often  arises 
a  struggle  for  existence,  which  for  severity  and  piti- 
lessness  can  hardly  be  surpassed  by  anything  our  im- 
agination can  conceive.  Man  also  is  involved  in  the 
same  process.  Is  he  not  often  equally  pressed  with 
the  struggle,  and  as  unconcernedly  left  to  his  fate  by 
the  "  heavenly  Father  "  ? 

Darwin  would  console  us,  in  reference  to  the  lower 
orders  of  being,  "  with  the  belief  that  the  war  of  Na- 
ture-is  not  incessant,  that  no  fear  is  felt,  that  death  is 
generally  prompt,  and  that  the  vigorous,  the  healthy, 
and  the  happy  survive."  Ah !  but  man  is  not  one  of 
the  lower  orders  of  being,  and  the  consolation  nowise 
fits  our  grief  for  him.  Man  is  an  animal  who  thinks, 
and  does  feel  fear ;  his  death  is  often  miserably  drawn 
out ;  he  survives  often  long  after  he  or  others  can  see 
the  use  of  living;  and  sometimes  it  is  at  last  forgotten 
that  he  is  a  man,  and  he  becomes  to  many  but  a  mass 
of  flesh  or  filth,  cumbering  the  ground.  Oh,  if  we 
have  a  view  of  human  nature  that  causes  u»  no  shud- 
der and  no  resentment  when  we  think  or  know  of 
this ;  if  we  do  not  say,  O  remorseless  struggle,  thou 
^  Origin  of  Species,  pp.  49,  54. 


DOES  THE   ETHICS   OF  JESUS  SATISFY?       219 

Last  no  right  or  place  in  the  circle  of  human  rela- 
tions, there  only  the  law  of  respect  and  help  and  pity- 
should  have  sway !  —  then  am  I  at  loss  to  know  how 
to  proceed.  I  can  only  address  myself  at  the  outset  to 
those  who  have  a  different  estimate  of  human  nature, 
who  respond  to  the  thought  of  Jesus'  words,  if  not  to 
the  inference  he  draws  from  them,  "  Ye  are  of  more 
value  than  many  sparrows ; "  who  believe  that  Ham- 
let's words,  ^'  How  noble  in  reason  !  how  infinite  in 
faculties  !  in  form  and  moving  how  express  and  admi- 
rable, in  action  how  like  an  angel,  in  apprehension 
how  like  a  god  ! "  —  that  these  are  none  too  good  for 
man,  since  though  they  flatter  him  as  he  often  is,  it 
is  with  the  portrait  of  what  he  may  be.  I  can  only 
address  those  who  see  in  man,  in  every  man,  some- 
what of  measureless  possibilities,  of  priceless  worth. 
On  those  who  think  in  this  way  a  new  burden  is  laid. 
We  can  no  longer,  without  hypocrisy,  commend  the 
poor  and  unfortunate  to  the  care  of  the  "heavenly 
Father ; "  nor  can  we  assent  to  the  cool  indifference 
and  practical  materialism  of  laissez-faire  doctrinaires, 
though  the  facts  of  the  economist  and  the  thoughts 
of  man  lying  at  the  basis  of  the  Christian  confidence 
have  equally  our  acknowledgment.  We  have,  in  a 
word,  to  cherish  the  thought  and  to  change  the  facts. 
For  though  the  facts  of  external  Nature  —  of  rain 
and  the  soil  and  its  fruits  —  are  not  in  our  power,  the 
facts  of  human  institution  and  custom  and  will  are  ; 
and  I  believe  there  is  no  need  that  a  single  human 
being  in  the  limits  of  civilization  should  suffer  or 
want,  or  live  any  but  a  nobly  human  life,  if  society 
would  but  awake  and  respond  to  the  task  laid  upon 
it.      There   is   no   trouble  in  the  nature   of  things ; 


220  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

the  nature  of  things  even  points  and  commands,  and 
in  a  single  way.  The  trouble  is  with  man,  who  will 
not  accept  ideal  guidance,  but  prefers  each  one  to 
take  his  own  way,  and  to  act  without  reference  to  the 
good  of  all. 

Hence,  if  the  old  religion  centred  in  prayer  to  God, 
the  new  must  be  an  address  to  man,  — and  yet  not  as 
if  the  word  merely  came  from  man,  but  in  the  name 
of  the  Highest,  and  with  the  aim  of  connecting  hu- 
man life  once  more  with  a  supreme  sanctity.  This 
sanctity  is  that  of  justice.  Jesus,  as  we  have  said, 
taught  the  Golden  Eule,  which  is  a  popular  and  ap- 
prehensible, if  somewhat  rude,  statement  of  justice  ; 
but  he  left  no  distinct  and  binding  impression  that 
industrial  life  must  be  ordered  thereby.  With  his 
peculiar  view  of  Providence  and  of  the  great  change 
impending  in  human  affairs,  the  problem  of  life  was 
hardly  serious  enough  to  call  for  such  distinct  inculca- 
tion. Hence,  though  for  the  little  time  that  his  spirit 
was  a  fresh  and  powerful  force  in  the  minds  of  his 
followers,  his  high  demands  were  matched  in  the  or- 
der of  their  lives,  and  the  earliest  Christianity  had 
some  of  the  features  of  a  genuine  brotherhood,  when 
discouragements  came,  there  was  felt  to  be  no  binding 
obligation  to  continue  these  features  ;  and  later  on, 
and  through  the  centuries  of  Christian  history,  very 
little  was  done  to  abolish  the  class  separations  into 
which  human  society  always  naturally  falls.  The 
practical  working  ideal  of  the  Church  has  been,  for 
the  most  part,  that  of  charity  and  pity  and  considera- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  higher  classes  in  their  treat- 
ment of  the  lower,  and  of  deference  and  submission 
from  the  lower  to  the  higher.     Justice  would  make 


DOES  THE  ETHICS  OF  JESUS  SATISFY?       221 

charity,  in  great  measure,  unnecessary,  and  the  airs 
of  self-humiliation  an  offence.  Instead  of  *^  Christian 
society,"  —  including  the  poor  and  the  rich,  the  alms- 
giver  and  the  beggar, — justice  would  give  us  a  high 
society  of  equals,  wherein  should  be  neither  patron- 
age nor  obsequiousness,  1  but  only  a  noble,  mutual 
courtesy  and  respect. 

"  One  hour  of  justice,"  said  an  old  Mahometan 
precept,  "  is  worth  seventy  years  of  prayer."  Let  us 
say  the  same  of  charity.  All  these  hospitals  and 
homes  and  asylums  while  in  one  way  an  honor,  are 
in  another  an  indication  of  the  disease  of  our  civili- 
zation. We  do  not  strike  at  the  root  by  raising  up 
more  of  them,  though  while  the  evils  last  this  must 
be  done.  Yet  the  Eeligion  of  the  Future  will  only 
come  with  those  who  do  strike  at  the  root,  and  who, 
whether  at  the  command  of  the  State  or  in  obedience 
to  the  law  in  their  own  hearts,  do  no  business  and 
engage  in  no  industry  in  which  ample  justice  is  not 
meted  out  to  all  who  join  them  in  it ;  who  will  use 
talents  for  leadership  and  initiatory  enterprise,  not 
to  give  them  mastery  over  others,  but  as  Godin  and 
Leclaire  in  France  have  done,  for  the  elevation  of 
others,  and  will  feel  in  all  they  do,  and  in  their  most 
material  concerns  as  well,  an  o'er -mastering  religious 
constraint.  For  though  religion  by  no  means  neces- 
sarily includes  a  system  of  theological  dogmas,  or 
prayer  or  worship  in  the  customary  senses,  I  have  no 
confidence  that  any  great  industrial  reform  will  come 
save  as  a  product  of  religion.  All  man's  natural  self- 
regarding  impulses   are  against   any  reform.     Those 

1  The  old  social  ideal  is  finely  portrayed  in  Addison's  "  Sir 
Roger  de  Coverley.'* 


222  ETHICAL  KELIGION. 

winning  in  the  battle  would  rather  have  the  battle  go 
on  as  it  is  ;  and  those  who  do  not  win,  and  who  may 
some  time,  instead  of  fighting  for  what  they  can  only 
most  scantily  get,  turn  and  fight  their  successful  com- 
petitors who  seem  to  be  keeping  them  from  getting 
more,  —  they,  even  if  they  should  triumph,  would 
only  solve  the  problem  for  themselves  and  not  for 
humanity,  and  would  perhaps  in  turn  have  to  give 
way  to  another  inferior  class  who,  stung  by  their  op- 
pression, would  rise  and  overthrow  them.  The  root 
of  the  matter,  the  solution  of  the  industrial  problem, 
is  no  more  with  the  working  classes  than  with  their 
employers.  Both  are  equally  striving  for  the  mastery, 
and  I  have  heard  it  said  by  a  manufacturer  that  no 
foreman  was  so  self-assertive  and  tyrannical  as  one 
suddenly  elevated  from  the  rank  of  a  common  work- 
man.^ The  solution  of  the  problem  is  only  in  an  idea, 
a  principle,  and  in  persons  only  as  they  are  permeated 
and  actuated  by  the  idea  and  principle.  Moreover, 
the  acceptance  of  the  idea  under  the  stress  of  no 
merely  selfish  desire  or  impulse,  but  because  it  is  just 
and  commanding  in  itself,  is  religion,  proving  as  it 
does  man's  link  with  what  is  higher  and  the  Highest, 
and  hinting  to  him  as  in  a  dream  — 

*'  The  hills  where  his  life  rose, 
And  the  sea  where  it  goes." 

4.  A  fourth  ethical  need  of  our  time  is  that  of  a 
new  statement  of  the  end  of  human  existence.  There 
is  general  dissatisfaction  with  the  idea  that  this  end 
is  for  each  one  in  the  saving  of  his  own  soul.     The 

1  Cf.  Aeschylus  (Prometheus  Bound,  36) : 
"  Who  holds  a  power 
But  newly  gained,  is  ever  stern  of  mood.'* 


DOES  THE  ETHICS  OF  JESUS  SATISFY?       223 

early  Christian  idea  of  the  "  kingdom  of  heaven  "  was 
much  nobler,  and  has  indeed  a  basic  meaning  of  in- 
estimable worth;  yet  the  form  and  expectation  with 
which  not  only  the  early  Church,  but  Jesus  himself, 
connected  it  have  proved  untrustworthy  and  delusive. 
The  righteous  ordering  of  human  life,  which  was  to 
come  with  the  reappearance  of  the  "  Son  of  Man,'' 
and  to  come  so  soon,  has  failed  to  come  in  all  these 
centuries.  And  the  notions  which  are  the  survival  of 
that  old  conception,  —  of  a  heaven  beyond  the  skies, 
of  a  Deity  who  will  be  seen,  a  Son  sitting  on  his 
right  hand,  and  of  angels  who  are  their  ministers,  — 
belong  rather  to  the  realm  of  fairy-land  than  to  that 
of  actual  fact.  There  is,  hence,  a  wide-spread  ten- 
dency to  find  the  ends  of  existence  in  what  is  near, 
palpable,  of  present,  even  of  material,  interest. 

Now,  though  it  is  impossible  not  to  sympathize 
with  this  tendency,  so  far  as  it  contrasts  with  the  old 
one  of  paying  slight  attention  to  human  affairs  and 
interests,  it  too  has  its  limitations ;  and  there  are 
deeper  moments  in  our  experience  in  which  we  dis- 
tinctly feel  them.  There  is  something  within  us 
which,  at  least  in  thought  and  .purpose,  rises  above  . 
all  limits  and  seeks  a  measureless  good.  As  that 
something  impels  one  to  find  a  large  share  of  his 
happiness  in  that  of  others,  so  it  makes  it  impossible 
to  find  content  in  seeing  others  merely  happy.  One 
feels  that  the  merely  happy  have  but  learned  the 
alphabet  of  existence ;  that  the  notion  of  perfection 
includes  the  disposition  of  the  heart,  the  worthiness 
to  be  happy,  the  enlargement  of  the  mind,  the  en- 
nobling of  the  moral  life,  —  these  all  carried  on  to 
heights  beyond  our  experience  or  even  imagination ; 


224  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

and  that  nothing  less  than  the  perfect,  and  this  shared 
in  by  all,  can  be  the  end,  the  goal.  It  is  character- 
istic of  religion  to  start  from  the  idea  of  this  limit- 
less good,  to  discern  the  worth  of  all  minor  or  partial 
goods  from  their  tendency  to  ultimate  therein,  to  send 
our  aspirations  to  the  very  stars,  and  thus  lend  an 
infinite  sanctity  to  each  particular  act.  Jesus  struck 
the  note  of  religion  when  he  counselled  his  disciples 
to  be  content  with  no  traditional  rules  of  goodness, 
but  only  with  perfection  (Matt.  v.  48).  His  impas- 
sioned apostle  struck  it  when  he  wrote,  "  Whatsoever 
things  are  true  or  honorable  or  just  or  pure  or  lovely, 
think  on  these  things  "  (Phil.  iv.  8).  Eeligion  is  the 
passion  of  the  soul  for  all  good. 

As  there  are  means  and  ends  in  the  world,  —  as 
for  example,  matter  is  for  form,  and  lower  forms  for 
higher,  inorganic  for  organic,  insentient  for  sentient, 
and  the  merely  sentient  for  the  rational,  —  so  the 
ends  of  rational  existence  are  the  ends  of  the  world, 
and  perfection  is  not  merely  a  human  but  a  world 
problem.  On  every  act  of  virtue  the  stars  shine ; 
for  every  choice  of  the  higher  for  the  lower,  for  every 
sacrifice  of  private  to  universal  good,  a  mute  sympa- 
thy runs  through  universal  nature.  And  no  act  of 
ours  born  of  that  upward  aim  can  fail  of  its  issue. 
There  can  be  no  destruction  of  what  is  truly  good. 
There  is  something  we  mortal  men  can  do  that  is  not 
mortal ;  that 

**  Will  last  and  shine  transfigured 
In  the  final  reign  of  Right, 
It  will  merge  into  the  splendors 
Of  the  City  of  the  Light."  i 

1  Prof.  Felix  Adler,  "  The  City  of  the  Light." 


DOES  THE   ETHICS   OF  JESUS  SATISFY?       225 

It  is  no  mere  earthly  paradise  that  is  hinted  at  in 
these  lines,  though  to  strive  for  a  nobler  social  order 
on  the  earth  as  a  proximate  form  of  the  perfect  is 
necessary,  but  an  end  and  outcome  of  human  toil 
and  struggle  unaffected  by  earthly  changes  or  earthly 
dissolution,  —  in  truth,  a  world-city,  wherein  world- 
issues  are  to  be  gathered  up  and  a  world-purpose  con- 
summated, and  the  thought  of  which  is  once  more 
to  give  dignity  and  the  sense  of  permanence  to  life. 

Do  we  survive  with  this  good ;  shall  we  know  in 
some  other  state  of  existence  the  good  we  have  done 
in  this ;  shall  we  meet  those  for  whom  we  have  done, 
and  recognize  those  whom  we  love  ?  I  know  not ; 
and  I  hold  it  to  be  at  the  best  a  curious  question,  al- 
beit one  deeply  touching  these  clinging  affections  that 
make  up  so  much  of  the  sweetness  of  human  life. 
The  ends  of  moral  perfection  are  not  for  our  personal 
satisfaction,  but  we  for  them.  He  who  loves  not  the 
true  and  the  good  better  than  himself ;  he  who  does 
not  put  them  above  all  personal  attachments  ;  who 
does  not  find  in  the  dearest  object  of  his  love  a  re- 
flection of  somewhat  above  and  higher,  and  not  a 
purely  individual  possession,  —  he,  however  else  for- 
tunate or  gifted,  has  never  found  himself  in  an  act 
of  religious  veneration.  For  this  is  not  man  meeting 
with  man,  but  man  bowing  before  the  unalterable,  the 
eternal  ideal  nature  of  things ;  not  God,  in  the  ordi- 
nary sense  of  that  term,  but  the  God  of  gods,  —  some- 
thing so  secret  and  necessary  that  were  it  to  cease, 
the  stars  would  vanish  out  of  the  sky,  and  were  it 
only  to  cease  in  human  consciousness,  human  society 
would  relapse  into  barbaric  chaos.  Emerson  said  not 
long  ago:  "I  see  that  sensible  men  and  conscientious 

16 


226  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

men  all  over  the  world  were  of  one  religion,  —  the 
religion  of  well-doing  and  daring,  men  of  sturdy  truth, 
men  of  integrity,  and  of  feeling  for  others.  My  infer- 
ence is  that  there  is  a  statement  of  religion  possible 
which  makes  all  scepticism  absurd/^  ^  It  is  such  a 
statement  of  religion  that  the  time  needs ;  and  I  can 
hardly  believe  that  personal  conceptions  of  God  or 
immortality  will  make  a  necessary  part  of  it,  —  which 
is  far  from  saying  that  men  shall  be  forbidden  to 
entertain  them.  The  certainty  and  the  sanctity  of 
religion  lie,  to  my  mind,  in  man's  moral  nature.  Here 
alone  is,  in  addition  to  the  may-he  or  the  can-be,  the 
MUST,  —  the  voice  of  command,  the  tone  of  authority, 
without  which,  and  without  assent  to  which,  religion 
is  but  a  playing  with  our  opinions  or  our  feelings. 
We  are  under  orders ;  though  we  are  free  to  obey  or 
not,  honor  and  safety  lie  only  in  obedience.  And 
religion  will  come  to  us  afresh  when  there  is  a  new 
perception  of  this  fact,  and  a  new  recasting  of  life 
and  thought  and  all  our  human  relations  in  obedi- 
ence to  it. 

1  "  The  Preacher,"  in  Lectures  and  Biographical  Sketches. 


XII. 
GOOD  FRIDAY  FROM  A  MODERN  STANDPOINT. 

GOOD  FRIDAY  commemorates  one  of  the  most 
pathetic  events  in  history.  The  orthodox  idea 
of  the  death  of  Jesus  takes  us  back  to  the  dim  begin- 
nings of  Hebrew  history,  when  Jahveh,  the  national 
god,  was  conceived  as  the  special  source  of  thunder 
and  the  storm,  of  plagues  and  pestilence,  and  when, 
according  to  the  legend,  the  fierce  wrath  with  which 
he  smote  the  Egyptians,  destroying  the  first-born  in 
every  house,  was  only  stayed  as  against  the  Hebrews 
by  the  blood  of  lambs  dashed  upon  the  door-posts  or 
the  lintels  of  the  houses  wherein  they  lived.  The 
sight  of  blood  was  thought,  according  to  the  legend, 
to  have  softened  the  heart  of  the  stern  god,  and  in 
his  mercy  he  passed  by  the  houses  of  the  Israelites. 
Thence,  according  to  the  Biblical  account,  arose  the 
festival  of  the  Passover.  Thousands  of  lambs  were 
slaughtered  every  spring  in  ancient  Israel,  to  com- 
memorate the  god's  favor  in  the  past  and  to  secure 
his  favor  for  the  future.  It  happened  that  it  was 
during  one  of  the  Passover  festivals  that  Jesus  came 
to  his  untimely  end,  and  the  coincidence  could  not 
fail  to  affect  the  imagination  of  the  early  Christians. 
Jesus  was  their  Passover,  they  declared,  —  their  lamb, 
—  and  they  had  no  need  to  sacrifice  any  other.  Be- 
hind him  and  his  blood  they  could  take  shelter,  and 


228  ETHICAL  EELIGION. 

the  destroying  hand  that  would  soon  be  stretched  out 
in  the  dread  day  of  judgment  would  pass  them  by. 
The  Gospel  traditions  even  represent  Jesus  as  taking 
this  view  of  his  death.  As  the  shadows  of  his  coming 
fate  fell  upon  him  he  spoke  mysteriously  of  giving 
his  life  as  a  ransom,  by  which  the  destruction  of  many 
should  be  averted ;  and  the  night  before  the  cruci- 
fixion, at  the  last  meal  with  his  disciples,  he  identified 
the  bread  and  wine  upon  the  table  with  his  body  and 
blood,  which  were  about  to  be  offered  up  as  a  propitia- 
tion to  Israel's  God.  This  is  the  meaning  of  the  com- 
munion which  all  Christian  churches  celebrate ;  here 
lies  the  significance  of  the  Catholic  mass  :  to  Prot- 
estants figuratively,  to  Catholics  really,  the  bread  and 
the  wine  are  the  body  and  blood  of  that  precious  pas- 
chal lamb  whose  life  was  taken  eighteen  centuries  ago. 
Unless  God  is  appeased,  unless  blood  is  shed,  there 
is  thought  to  be  no  favor  from  the  unseen  world  for 
man ;  and  to  those  who  do  not  trust  in  this  sacrifice 
already  made  there  is  only,  to  use  Scriptural  language, 
a  certain  fearful  expectation  of  judgment  and  of  fierce, 
devouring  fire.^  Here  is  one  explanation  of  the  power 
which  orthodox  Christianity  still  has  over  the  minds 
of  men.  At  bottom  it  is  a  religion  of  fear ;  and  before 
the  advent  of  science  and  its  disclosures  of  an  equable 
reign  of  law,  fear  is  more  natural  to  men  in  contem- 
plating Nature  than  any  other  feeling.  There  is  noth- 
ing men  crave  so  much  as  to  have  their  fears  allayed ; 
and  so  to  ignorant,  anxious  men  and  women  every- 
where, —  whether  among  the  earliest  Jewish  converts, 
or  among  the  thronging  multitudes  of  Eome,  or  among 
the  untutored  barbarians  of  the  north,  or  among  the 
1  Hebrews,  x.  27. 


GOOD  FRIDAY  FROM  A  MODERN  STANDPOINT.   229 

uneducated  masses  in  our  great  cities  to-day,  —  Chris- 
tianity has  come  as  a  boon,  assuring  them  that  if 
they  will  trust  in  "  the  blood  "  that  has  been  shed  for 
them,  the  unseen  powers  of  the  world  will  be  kind  and 
gracious. 

What  occasion  have  those  to  whom  this  whole  circle 
of  belief  is  illusory  and  pitifully  erroneous  to  speak  of 
Good  Friday  ?  I  answer.  Because  the  death  of  Jesus 
may  be  looked  at  from  a  different  standpoint.  We  may 
ask  ourselves.  What  led  to  it ;  what  does  it  show  us  as 
to  his  character ;  what  is  its  meaning  as  an  incident 
in  the  moral  progress  of  the  race ;  what  value  has  it 
still  for  us  personally,  when  we  look  upon  it  simply 
as  the  death  of  a  great  and  heroic  man  ?  We  may 
treat  the  death  of  Jesus  as  we  would  that  of  Socrates 
or  of  Savonarola  or  of  John  Brown,  —  tragic  deaths, 
all  of  them  ;  deaths  that  have  moved  the  hearts  of 
men  and  influenced  the  course  of  history,  and  still 
have  an  inspiring  power.  The  death  of  Jesus,  it  seems 
to  me,  surpasses  them  all  in  pathos  and  in  its  influ- 
ence on  the  fortunes  of  mankind.  I  think  it  not  pre- 
sumptuous to  depart  from  Jesus'  own  estimate  in  this 
matter.  We  human  beings  often  fail  to  understand 
ourselves.  President  Garfield  said  that  "the  lesson 
of  history  is  rarely  learned  by  the  actors  themselves.'' 
We  who  are  really  living  are  too  earnest  about  the 
matter  to  sit  down  and  form  calm  judgments  ;  time 
and  the  perspective  which  time  gives  are  necessary. 
Jesus  may  have  valued  his  death  for  one  thing,  — 
history  may  value  it  for  quite  another. 

How  was  it  that  Jesus  died  so  soon  ?  Why  did  he 
not  live  on  to  a  ripe  old  age,  like  Socrates  ?  I  answer, 
essentially  because  he  was  not  a  philosopher,  but  a 


230  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

reformer,  an  agitator.  For  this  reason  his  predeces- 
sor, the  ascetic  Baptist,  was  cast  into  one  of  Herod's 
dungeons,  and  came  out  only  to  be  decapitated ;  he  had 
spoken  too  boldly  of  social  iniquity  in  the  court.  Jesus 
had  no  ascetic  ways  about  him.  He  did  not  love  the 
lonesome  wilderness,  —  he  frequented  the  towns  and 
cities  where  men  were  congregated,  and  was  touched 
by  human  sufferings  and  privations  as  well  as  human 
wickedness.  But  he  threw  himself  into  the  social  agi- 
tations of  his  day  ;  and  the  one  agitating  thought  — 
that  with  which  all  secretly  sympathized,  though  few 
dared  to  promulgate  and  hope  anything  immediately 
from  it — was  that  of  an  overthrowal  of  the  hated  Eo- 
man  power,  and  the  inauguration  of  a  new  social  and 
political  order,  under  the  name  of  the  "  kingdom  of 
heaven."  This  was  the  Messianic  dream  of  his  people. 
During  his  youth  or  early  manhood  there  had  been 
actual  uprisings  and  bloody  resistance  to  the  Koman 
authority.  Jesus  had  a  horror  of  war,  and  looked  not 
to  the  hands  of  any  soldiery  to  accomplish  the  great 
revolution  on  which  he,  too,  had  set  his  heart.  The 
great  god  Jahveh,  —  he  who  had  flashed  fire  out  of 
heaven  in  approval  of  his  faithful  prophets,  who  had 
parted  the  waters  of  the  Eed  Sea  to  let  his  people 
pass  through  and  escape  from  their  oppressors,  —  his 
arm,  Jesus  thought,  would  be  stretched  out  again ; 
and  it  was  necessary  only  that  he  be  trusted,  and 
that  the  people  be  gathered  out  of  Israel  who  should 
be  worthy  to  form  the  new  and  glorious  kingdom. 
By  a  bold  leap,  and  yet  no  bolder  than  other  Mes- 
siahs took  before  and  after  him,  Jesus  assumed  the 
leadership  of  a  new  movement,  gathered  followers, 
spoke   with   authority,  foretold  the   coming   change. 


GOOD  FRIDAY  FROM  A  MODERN  STANDPOINT.   231 

and  made  others  feel,  and  believed  himself,  that  when 
the  "kingdom  of  heaven"  should  come,  he  should 
be  at  its  head.  "The  old  order  will  soon  cease," 
he  said,  "and  a  new  one  is  coming;  in  the  old  is 
oppression  and  cruel  suffering  and  abject  misery  and 
sensuality  and  all  manner  of  evil ;  in  the  new  there 
will  be  a  recompense  for  every  wrong,  and  comfort 
for  all  who  mourn  ;  in  the  new,  the  poor  and  the  per- 
secuted and  the  pure  in  heart,  and  those  who  love 
others  as  they  do  themselves,  will  be  the  privileged 
ones,  while  all  who  oppress,  all  who  are  sensual,  all 
who  are  hypocritical  and  for  a  pretence  make  long 
prayers,  shall  be  humbled  and  cast  out."  The  heart 
of  the  people  responded  to  such  fervid  utterances. 
Those  in  authority,  on  the  other  hand, — the  props, 
the  pillars,  the  ornaments  of  the  old  order  of  things, 
—  looked  askance  at  Jesus.  It  is  the  old  story  of 
conflicting  interests ;  the  Sadducean  nobility,  the  zeal- 
ous, punctilious  Pharisees,  the  lawyer-scribes  were  in 
a  place  of  reverence,  and  it  did  not  look  as  if  in 
the  dream  of  the  future  which  Jesus  unfolded  they 
should  have  any  place  at  all.  On  the  other  hand, 
those  who  were  oppressed  and  miserable  had  every- 
thing to  gain  ;  and  that  many  of  them  were  inspired 
by  no  higher  motives  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  when 
Jesus  got  into  the  clutches  of  the  civil  power  they 
made  a  very  rabble  against  him.  The  Eoman  author- 
ities never  seem  to  have  troubled  themselves  at  all 
about  Jesus  ;  so  peaceful  was  his  attitude  and  so  ex- 
clusively did  he  address  himself  to  his  own  country- 
men, that  they  scarcely  knew  of  him ;  and  when  he 
was  brought  to  trial  before  them  they  seem  to  have 
regarded  him  as  a  harmless  dreamer,  and  would  never 


232  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

have  consented  to  his  death  had  they  not  been  driven 
to  do  so  by  the  fierce  and  determined  attitude  of  the 
leaders  of  Jewish  orthodoxy.  But  the  conflict  into 
which  Jesus  had  precipitated  himself  could  have  no 
other  issue.  He  did  not  trim  his  words,  —  he  spoke  as 
conscience  prompted  him  to  speak.  Sharper  invective 
than  that  he  poured  out  against  the  false  guides  of  his 
people  was  perhaps  never  heard,  —  they  would  not  en- 
ter into  the  "  kingdom  of  heaven/'  nor  would  they  let 
others  go  in.  It  was  but  a  question  of  time ;  and  when 
one  of  his  disciples,  momentarily  chagrined  at  a  re- 
buke his  master  had  given  him  for  his  penuriousness, 
or  possibly  with  the  thought  of  forcing  him  to  take 
his  position  as  the  nation's  king,  offered  to  put  the 
Jewish  authorities  in  possession  of  him,  the  offer 
was  readily  closed  with;  Jesus  was  made  a  prisoner, 
and  the  next  day,  after  being  hurried  through  a  judi- 
cial trial,  which  was  little  better  than  a  farce,  he  was 
nailed  to  the  cross. 

Such  were  the  causes  that  led  to  the  event  which 
Good  Friday  celebrates,  —  so  far  as  they  can  be  gath- 
ered into  a  few  words.  Jesus  died  the  victim  of  a 
great  hope  for  his  people  and  for  the  world.  He 
belongs  to  the  company  of  those  who  cannot  be  pa- 
tient with  things  as  they  see  them,  and  who,  because 
they  cannot,  meet  with  suspicion  and  opposition  and 
hatred,  and  perhaps  violence  and  death.  His  hope 
was  not  free  from  illusion,  —  nay,  in  one  sense  it 
was  altogether  illusion ;  for  wrong  and  oppression 
will  never  cease  in  this  world  by  the  intervention  of 
divine  power  to  judge  and  punish  them,  nor  do  men 
return  from  the  dead  to  do  the  work  which  they  have 
left  undone  on  earth.     But  we  have  to  distinguish 


GOOD  FRIDAY  FROM  A  MODERN  STANDPOINT.   233 

between  one's  aivi  and  the  means  by  which  one  may 
hope  to  see  that  aim  accomplished ;  and  there  is 
more  hope  for  the  world  from  one  Jesus  than  from  a 
dozen  or  a  thousand  men  trained  to  scientific  habits 
of  thought,  yet  without  any  transcendent  aim  and 
passion  for  a  reign  of  right.  The  aim  of  Jesus  was 
sound;  it  was  perfect,  it  was  unsurpassable.  There 
is  no  other  supreme  aim  for  man  than  that  reign  of 
justice  and  of  love  upon  which  Jesus  set  his  heart. 
To-day,  in  the  measure  that  we  have  that  aim  and 
try  to  realize  it  there  is  order  and  safety  and  joy  in 
the  community ;  and  that  there  is  so  much  lawlessness 
and  defiant  wickedness  abroad  is  simply  evidence  to 
how  great  an  extent  men  have  it  not.  We  must  seek 
first,  not  wealth,  not  power,  and  not  science  nor  art, 
but  the  "kingdom  of  God,"  —  there  is  perpetual  in- 
spiration for  man  in  this  lofty  thought  of  Jesus.  The 
significance  to  us  of  the  death  of  Jesus  is  simply  that 
he  kept  this  aim,  in  the  only  form  that  was  possible 
to  him,  to  the  bitter  end.  We  now  can  distinguish 
the  aim  from  the  method  by  which  it  was  to  be  real- 
ized ;  we  can  separate  the  form  from  the  substance  of 
Jesus'  thought.  But  Jesus  was  not  a  philosopher,  — 
his  consciousness  was  one  and  indivisible  ;  and  for 
him  to  doubt  that  he  was  the  Messiah  would  have 
been  to  doubt  that  there  was  any  Messianic  reign 
to  be  ;  and  to  doubt  that  would  have  been  to  aban- 
don his  faith  in  Israel  and  in  Israel's  God ;  and  that 
he  could  not  abandon,  —  it  was  a  part  of  him,  in  his 
blood  and  in  every  fibre  of  his  being. 

For  my  own  part,  I  can  say  that  there  are  no  events 
in  Jesus'  life  so  touching  as  those  toward  the  close. 
At  no  time  does  he  reveal  so  much  character.   To  stand 


234  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

by  our  faith  when  all  things  go  well  with  us,  —  there 
is  no  great  virtue  in  that ;  to  stand  by  it  when  it  is 
assailed,  when  we  may  suffer  loss  from  our  adhesion 
to  it, — that  tests  whatever  manliness  there  is  in  us. 
Jesus  had  no  stoical  feeling  about  death.  It  was  not 
a  matter  of  indifference  to  him  whether  he  lived  or 
died.  He  who  loved  the  flowers  of  the  field  and  the 
birds  of  the  air,  the  lakes  and  the  hillsides  of  his  na- 
tive Galilee,  and  the  proud  city  of  Jerusalem,  to  which 
he  had  made  yearly  pilgrimages  from  his  boyhood  up, 
could  not  turn  from  all  these  without  some  rendings 
of  the  heart  and  tears  ;  and  sharper  pang  than  all, 
he  who  had  counted  on  divine  assistance,  he  who  had 
looked  to  being  elevated  to  a  divine  throne,  whence 
he  could  execute  the  justice  that  was  burning  in  his 
heart,  —  how  could  he  die  like  other  men  and  leave 
his  great  work  undone  ?  In  theory  Jesus  had  as- 
sented to  his  death  :  on  his  way  from  Galilee  to  Je- 
rusalem for  the  last  time,  he  surmised  what  the  end 
would  be  ;  yes,  on  the  night  before  his  death,  as  we 
have  seen,  he  made  a  mournful  comparison  of  him- 
self to  the  paschal  lamb.  But  afterward,  when  in 
the  darkness  of  the  night  the  dread  spectre  of  death 
actually  stood  before  him,  his  human  shrinkings 
were  too  strong;  he  fell  on  his  face  and  prayed  to 
God  that  the  cup  might  be  removed  from  him, — 
prayed  three  times,  and  sweat  fell  like  blood  from  his 
face.  It  was  an  almost  mortal  agony,  so  that  to-day 
we  hold  our  breath  as  we  read  of  it,  —  we  feel  the 
wrestling  as  if  it  were  our  own,  we  hear  the  cry  of 
pain ;  and  then  the  cry  ceases,  and  a  more  than  mor- 
tal calm  passes  through  his  breast,  —  he  has  jdelded 
his  strong  love  of  life,  he  goes  forth  to  the  sacrifice. 


GOOD  FRIDAY  FROM  A  MODERN  STANDPOINT.   235 

Never  was  man  serener  than  Jesus  before  his  judges. 
When  idle  charges  were  trumped  up  against  him  he 
was  silent,  —  he  would  not  honor  them  even  with  a  de- 
nial. But  when  asked  as  to  the  central  core  of  all  his 
faith,  —  whether  he  was  the  Messiah,  —  he  promptly 
answered,  "I  am,"  and  took  the  oath  administered  to 
him  by  the  high-priest,  though  he  had  enjoined  his 
followers  not  to  swear ;  he  pointed  his  persecutors 
away  to  the  time  when  he  should  sit  on  the  right 
hand  of  God,  and  come  in  majesty  on  the  clouds 
of  heaven ;  and  when  in  return  the  priestly  hirelings 
spat  in  his  face  and  cuffed  him  and  jeered  at  him, 
he  held  his  peace.  Before  Pilate  Jesus  preserved 
the  same  dignified  attitude,  affirming  his  royal  rank, 
but  replying  nothing  to  the  charges  urged  by  the 
priests  and  elders.  He  submitted  to  the  insults  of 
the  brutal  Roman  soldiery  :  in  cruel  mockery  they 
put  a  red  gown  upon  him,  and  placed  a  crown  woven 
of  thorn-branches  upon  his  head,  and  for  a  sceptre 
put  into  his  right  hand  a  reed,  and  then  filed  before 
him,  kneeling  in  turn  and  saying,  "Hail,  King  of  the 
Jews  ! "  and  not  a  murmur  escaped  him.  On  his 
way  to  the  place  of  execution  he  had  to  bear  his 
own  cross,  until  in  his  weakness  he  could  carry  it 
no  longer,  when  a  passer-by  was  impressed  into  the 
service.  On  arriving  at  the  dreary  hill-top  he  was 
offered,  "according  to  Jewish  usage,  a  highly  spiced 
wine,  an  intoxicating  drink,  which  from  a  sentiment 
of  pity  was  given  to  the  sufferer  to  stupefy  him."  ^  He 
touched  the  cup  to  his  lips  and  put  it  from  him.  As 
Renan  says,  "this  sad  solace  of  common  criminals  was 
unsuited  to  his  lofty  nature ; "  he  would  face  death 
1  Renan's  Life  of  Jesus,  ch.  xxv. 


236  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

with  mind  unclouded.  The  physical  horrors  of  that 
death  no  one  could  describe  ;  nor  shall  I  attempt  to. 
Crucifixion  was  reserved  for  slaves  and  the  lowest 
criminals ;  it  was  a  horrid  torture,  and  ordinarily  long 
drawn  out.  But  if  we  may  trust  the  Gospel  traditions, 
no  outcry  escaped  the  lips  of  Jesus,  unless  it  was  once 
when  consumed  with  burning  thirst.  So  magnanimous 
was  he,  that  he  prayed  God  to  forgive  his  executioners, 
since  they  knew  not  what  they  were  doing ;  and  though 
for  a  moment  his  heart  failed  him,  and  he  felt  as  one  for- 
saken, he  reassured  himself  at  the  last,  and  trustfully 
commended  to  the  hands  of  God  his  parting  spirit. 

Where  shall  we  read  of  a  more  tragic,  a  more  noble 
death  than  this  ?  Where  is  one  that  more  stirs  our 
mingled  feelings  of  indignation  and  pity  and  admira- 
tion ?  Do  we  wonder  that  by  his  death  Jesus  has  won 
a  closer  place  in  the  hearts  of  men  than  he  could  ever 
have  by  a  most  splendid  and  successful  life ;  that  the 
crucified  one  has  been  covered  with  honor  and  glory ; 
that  men  have  raised  him  to  a  height  of  praise  equal 
only  to  the  depth  of  shame  in  which  he  was  once 
plunged  ?  Who  would  not  like  to  be  a  believing  Chris- 
tian for  a  moment  on  Good  Friday  even  more  than  on 
Easter  Day,  since  all  the  instincts  of  honor  and  pity 
in  a  man  incline  us  to  take  the  side  of  one  who  was 
once  placed  at  such  bitter  disadvantage?  —  and  we 
should  rather  err  with  such  an  one  than  keep  com- 
pany with  those  who  are  coldly  correct,  and  have  not 
hearts  large  enough  for  a  noble  mistake  !  I  for  one 
would  cast  my  tribute  of  honor  at  the  feet  of  Jesus. 
There  are  Liberals  who  would  ignore  him,  who  would 
bring  up  their  children  in  ignorance  of  him,  or  per- 
chance would  ridicule  him.     I  am  not  of  their  num- 


GOOD  FRIDAY  FROM  A  MODERN  STANDPOINT.    237 

ber.  Jesus  is  no  paragon  to  my  mind,  —  no  model 
of  spotless  virtue  or  of  infallible  wisdom  ;  I  do  not 
call  myself  his  follower.  But  this  he  is  to  me,  — 
inspiration !  He  touches  my  heart,  he  stirs  my  con- 
science, he  warms  me  with  love  of  a  noble  ideal ;  and 
this  is  something  which  few  philosophers.  Liberal  or 
other,  have  done  or  are  doing  for  men,  —  so  that  while 
in  certain  lines  they  may  give  correct  opinions,  Jesus 
'and  a  few  others  like  him  give  that  indefinable  thing 
we  call  life.  I  should  rather  have  the  impulses  which 
Jesus  communicates  and  be  left  to  form  my  own  opin- 
ions, than  to  have  the  opinions  of  our  wisest  philoso- 
phers without  that  motion  of  the  heart  toward  good- 
ness and  all  unselfishness  which  is  so  naturally  stirred 
by  the  spectacle  of  the  life  and  death  of  this  son  of 
man.  It  is  not  knowledge  that  moves  the  world,  but 
character,  love ;  and  outside  of , the  holy  Buddha,  where 
is  there  a  man  who  has  so  impressed  himself  upon  the 
world,  and  created  and  deepened  so  many  channels  of 
pity  and  tenderness,  as  Jesus,  whose  opinions  we  may 
outgrow,  but  whose  heart  never  ? 

The  death  of  Jesus  sets  the  last  seal  to  his  sincerity, 
and  to  the  reality  of  that  wonderful  love  of  man  which 
made  him  brave  so  much  and  count  the  cost  so  little. 
A  man  of  commoner  mould  would  never  have  risked 
so  much ;  a  man  Avith  a  heart  less  pure  would  never 
have  assumed  so  high  a  mission.  We  are  compelled  to 
say,  that  if  Israel  and  the  world  were  to  be  redeemed 
and  purified  and  transformed  according  to  the  outlines 
of  his  dream,  he  was  worthy  to  be  the  instrument  of 
the  Unseen  in  doing  so ;  for  never  was  there  one  who 
had  less  self-will,  who  more  completely  identified  him- 
self with  the  will  of  the  Highest  as  he  conceived  it,  — 


238  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

never  one  better  qualified  to  sit  at  the  right  hand  of 
his  Father,  as  he  thought  he  one  day  should,  and  dis- 
pense justice  and  merciful  judgment  to  the  assembled 
nations  of  men. 

As  an  incident  in  the  moral  progress  of  humanity 
the  death  of  Jesus  may  be  said  to  have  a  threefold 
significance  :  — 

1.  It  is  the  consecration  of  sorrow,  of  suffering.  Cast 
over  in  your  mind  the  gods  of  the  Grecian  and  Roman* 
pantheon,  and  where  shall  you  find  one  with  the  down- 
cast, sorrowful  visage  of  the  Son  of  Man  ?  where  among 
the  fair  goddesses  shall  you  find  a  face  so  tenderly 
beautiful  as  that  which  Christian  imagination  has  given 
to  the  Mater  Dolorosa  ?  A  suffering  god — what  an  in- 
congruous thing  to  a  Greek  or  a  Roman  !  But  a  suf- 
fering god,  a  suffering  man  whom  his  followers  have 
made  a  god,  is  the  central  figure  in  Christian  worship. 
This  means  an  immense  difference  in  the  moral  senti- 
ments of  men.  It  means  a  compassion  strange  to  the 
ancient  world,  —  it  means  that  the  more  men  suffer 
(other  things  being  equal),  the  more  they  shall  be 
cared  for ;  while  in  Pagan  civilization  it  was  too  apt 
to  be  the  case  that  the  more  men  suffered,  the  more 
they  were  neglected.  No  one  can  turn  in  reflection  to 
the  cross  of  Jesus,  or  to  any  of  the  affecting  incidents 
of  the  last  two  days  of  his  life,  and  not  feel  his  heart 
softened  toward  all  the  sufferings  of  his  fellow-men, 
and  a  double  aversion  to  all  the  jeering  spirit  with 
which  one  man  sometimes  makes  light  of  another  man's 
distress.  Such  incidents  as  those  at  the  trial  and  cru- 
cifixion of  Jesus  would  not  be  tolerated  now,  even  in 
the  punishment  of  our  worst  criminals  ;  the  dignity  of 
humanity,  even  in  crime,  is  felt  now,  and  a  lynching 


GOOD  FRIDAY  FROM  A  MODERN  STANDPOINT.   239 

mob  would  hardly  subject  its  victim  to  such  indignities 
as  were  heaped  on  Jesus.  It  is  not  by  accident,  then, 
that  we  care  for  the  sick  now  as  never  was  the  case 
in  the  old  world,  that  the  poor  have  a  love  shown 
to  them  that  they  never  had  in  Greece  or  Eome ;  it 
was  not  by  accident  that  in  old  Rome  itself  the  glad- 
iatorial shows  were  stopped  when  Christian  influences 
gained  the  upper  hand  in  the  State.  Everywhere  a 
new  humanity  arose,  a  new  pity  for  all  the  outcast 
members  of  society ;  for  no  one  suffered  shame  and 
loss  without  exciting  the  remembrance  of  him  who  was 
in  his  day  "despised  and  rejected  of  men,"  and  who 
asked  no  honor  for  himself  save  that  of  being  remem- 
bered in  the  form  of  the  least  and  feeblest  of  those 
who  were  his  brethren. 

2.  The  death  of  Jesus  brings  home  to  us  in  a  vivid 
way  that  sacrifice  is  a  law  of  progress.  It  is  not  that 
the  unseen  Spirit  is  angry  and  will  not  be  favorable  to 
man  until  some  offering  of  blood  is  made  to  him,  but 
that  the  conditions  of  things  are  such  that  progress 
is  only  possible  through  effort  and  pain  and  sacrifice. 
"What  good  thing  have  my  brothers,"  exclaims  the 
Buddha,  "  but  it  came  from  search  and  strife  and  lov- 
ing sacrifice  ?  "  It  is  a  beautiful  ideal  that  each  of 
us  should  live  a  full  and  complete  life,  without  any 
marring  of  it,  any  cutting  of  it  short  for  the  sake  of 
others ;  but  it  is  the  goal  of  evolution  rather  than  an 
always  present  possibility ;  in  the  mean  time  we  have 
often  to  suffer  injury  to  ourselves  that  good  may  come 
to  others.  What  mother,  what  devoted  friend,  what 
leader  of  reform,  what  helper  in  any  useful  cause,  does 
not  know  that  without  willingness  to  part  with  some- 
thing,—  with  time  or  means  or  strength  or  health, 


240  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

perhaps  with  life  itself,  —  they  are  not  fitted  to  the 
tasks  to  which  nature  or  their  own  hearts  call  them  ? 
And  this  is  why  the  innocent  ideal  of  pleasure,  of 
happiness  for  ourselves,  falls  so  far  short  of  the  real 
requirements  of  life.  It  is  summer-weather  philoso- 
phy; and  if  we  have  cherished  it,  the  first  storm  of 
adversity,  the  first  disappointment,  may  dispel  it  like  a 
dream  from  our  minds,  and  is  only  too  apt  to  leave  us 
bitter  because  we  were  so  unprepared.  For  we  are  in 
truth  bound  to  one  another,  —  we  belong  to  humanity. 
It  is  against  our  nature  to  seek  a  good  for  ourselves, 
alone  and  apart ;  it  is  according  to  our  nature  to  find 
our  happiness  in  the  common  happiness,  —  to  give,  to 
spend  and  be  spent  in  the  service  of  humanity.  None 
of  the  lower  goods  on  which  we  so  often  set  our  hearts 
are  absolute.  Health  we  should  seek ;  but  we  may  dis- 
regard it,  and  suffer,  as  George  Eliot  says,  "glorious 
harm  "  in  some  noble,  disinterested  service.  "  Who 
would  not  rather  be  sick,"  says  Eenan,  "  like  Pascal, 
than  in  good  health  like  the  multitude  ?  "  Who  would 
not  rather  suffer,  I  would  add,  and  bear  his  cross  like 
Jesus,  and  be  buffeted  and  spit  upon  and  made  the 
butt  of  cruel  jests,  and  at  last  be  crucified,  than  to 
live  to  a  good  old  age  as  the  high-priest  did  who  con- 
demned him  to  death,  and  left  children  after  him,  so 
that,  as  Josephus  says,  he  was  held  to  be  one  of  the 
most  fortunate  men  of  his  century  ?  Let  us  not  use 
words  lightly ;  let  us  not  rate  ourselves  too  high.  I  do 
not  forget  the  truth  of  those  lines  of  Newman,  — 

•*  Prune  thou  thy  words,  the  thoughts  control 
That  o'er  thee  swell  and  throng ; 
They  will  condense  within  thy  soul, 
And  change  to  purpose  strong. 


GOOD  FRIDAY  FROM  A  MODERN  STANDPOINT.   241 

"  But  he  who  lets  his  feelings  run 
In  soft,  luxurious  flow, 
Shrinks  when  hard  service  must  be  done, 
And  faints  at  every  woe." 

Ah !  we  should  shrink  from  the  cross  of  Jesus.  We 
shrink  from  being  ill-spoken  of  now  ;  we  shrink  from 
all  the  little  crosses  that  duty  brings  us  from  day  to 
day.  Perhaps  I  should  not  say  we  should  rather  suf- 
fer like  Jesus  ;  but  oh  that  we  might  be  ready  to ! 
that  we  might  school  ourselves  now  by  acts  of  self- 
denial,  by  patience  under  suffering,  by  continuing  to 
love  though  there  are  those  who  hate  us,  by  constantly 
surrendering  our  self-will  in  face  of  the  divine  neces- 
sities that  surround  us,  —  school  ourselves  so  that  we 
shall  be  ready,  should  we  be  called  upon,  to  render 
the  last  sacrifice,  and  withhold  not  life  itself  from  the 
service  of  the  world  !  Death  is  a  sorry  fact ;  there 
is  no  beauty  in  it  that  we  should  desire  it,  —  it  is  the 
opposite  of  all  we  crave  ;  we  do  not  like  to  think  of 
it,  we  turn  from  it  when  the  mention  of  it  is  made. 
O  hard,  ungracious  visitor  !  0  stern,  repulsive  visage  ! 
yet  thou  mayest  be  transfigured,  thou  mayest  even 
be  made  welcome.  "  Let  death  come  straightway," 
said  Achilles,  *^  after  I  have  punished  the  wrong-doer, 
so  that  I  remain  not  here  by  the  beaked  ships,  a 
laughing-stock  and  a  useless  burden  of  the  earth." 
Jesus  said,  "  Let  death  come."  Death  is  almost  made 
sacred  since  Jesus  and  other  heroic,  generous  souls 
have  died ;  there  have  been  impetuous  spirits  that  have 
even  courted  it,  —  that  have  been  ready  to  throw  the 
world  away  that  they  might  follow  in  the  footsteps 
of  the  great  whom  they  revered.  Do  not  fear  death, 
O  Friend!  but  rather  fear  that  thou  mayest  not  die 

16 


242  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

worthily,  —  selfish,  fretful,  bitter,  rebellious,  when  thou 
shouldst  be  full  of  love,  and  peaceful  and  thankful 
and  ready  to  yield,  and  even  glad  if  in  any  way  thy 
death  may  contribute   to   the   world's   good. 

3.  There  is  another  aspect  of  the  death  of  Jesus. 
It  is  impossible  to  put  out  of  mind  the  element  of 
illusion  in  the  hope  to  which  he  fell  a  martyr.  The 
world's  progress  is  not  all  in  a  straight  line.  Those 
who  would  benefit  the  world  we  remember  the  more 
tenderly  for  their  mistakes.  The  road  to  humanity's 
perfect  goal  is  not  revealed  to  us  by  flashes  from 
heaven,  —  we  have  to  find  it  out  by  experience  ;  and 
incidental  to  humanity's  experience  are  mistakes  and 
failures  numberless.  The  hope  of  Jesus  to  come  again 
to  the  world  in  power  and  glory  was  illusory  ;  the 
solemn  prediction  he  made  to  the  high-priest  at  his 
trial  was  illusory.  Had  he  had  no  illusions  he  would 
not  have  died  as  he  did,  —  he  would  not  have  endured 
to  be  spit  upon  and  mocked  and  tortured  and  cruci- 
fied. But  when  I  think  of  this  aspect  of  the  case  I 
call  to  mind  George  Eliot's  words  ;  — 

"  Even  our  failures  are  a  prophecy, 
Even  our  yearnings  and  our  bitter  tears 
After  that  fair  and  true  we  cannot  grasp,  — 
As  patriots  who  seem  to  die  in  vain 
Make  liberty  more  sacred  by  their  pangs." 

Jesus  died  in  vain,  as  have  others  before  him  or 
since  his  time  ;  but  his  cause  is  the  dearer  to  us  be- 
cause he  failed  in  it.  I  would  we  might  write  his 
thought  on  our  foreheads  and  in  our  hearts  ;  I  would 
we  might  make  it  the  great  sovereign  aim  of  our  lives  to 
bring  that  "  kingdom  of  heaven  "  for  which  he  sighed 


GOOD  PRIDAY  FROM  A  MODERN  STANDPOINT.   243 

and  prayed  and  died,  to  pass  in  the  world.  What 
are  we  living  for  ?  What  thought  is  topmost  in  our 
souls  ?  Nothing  is  fitted  to  be  there  but  the  thought 
which  Jesus  cherished.  Let  us  purify  it  from  all 
that  belonged  merely  to  his  time  and  race ;  let  it  be 
to  us  a  hope  for  America  and  the  world,  instead  of,  as 
it  was  to  him,  for  Israel  and  the  world ;  let  us  strive 
to  build  a  true  kingdom  of  justice,  a  city  of  the  light; 
let  us  hold  to  such  an  aim  against  our  fears,  against 
the  selfishness  of  men,  against  our  own  selfishness, 
against  all  the  odds  that  count  on  the  other  side ;  and 
then  though  we  in  turn  make  mistakes,  others  will 
remember  us  the  more  tenderly  for  them,  and  press 
the  harder  to  find  the  way  that  is  true  and  sure. 


XIII. 

THE  SUCCESS  AND  THE  FAILURE   OF 
PROTESTANTISM. 

WHAT  is  the  significance  of  Protestantism  ?     In 
what  respect  has  it  been  successful ;  in  what 
has  it  failed  ? 

Protestantism  was  successful  in  the  first  place,  in 
that  it  was  a  break  with  the  Catholic  Church,  and 
not  a  mere  reform  of  it.  Here  Luther  himself  was 
great,  and  not  merely  the  logic  of  his  doctrines. 
Luther  was  indeed  no  violent  despiser  of  tradition 
and  authority.  In  his  very  theses,  nailed  up  on  the 
door  of  the  church  at  Wittenberg,  he  did  not,  con- 
trary to  the  common  opinion,  attack  the  Pope  nor  the 
Pope's  power  to  pardon  sins.  He  said,  "Cursed  be 
he  who  speaks  against  the  indulgences  of  the  Pope ; 
but  blessed  be  he  who  speaks  against  the  foolish  and 
impudent  language  of  the  preachers  of  indulgence  ! '' 
To  the  second  ambassador  from  the  Pope  Luther  even 
offered  to  be  silent  on  the  matter,  and  to  let  it  die 
away  of  itself,  if  only  his  opponents  would  be  silent 
on  their  part ;  though  he  added,  ominously,  "  if  they 
continue  attacking  me,  a  serious  struggle  will  soon 
arise  out  of  a  trifling  quarrel."  He  declared  that  he 
had  made  his  protest  against  indulgences  "  as  a  faith- 
ful son  of  the  Church,'^  and  offered  to  address  the 
public  to  that  effect.     And   in   this  public  explana- 


SUCCESS  AND  FAILURE  OF  PROTESTANTISM.   245 

tion  he  said  that  though  everything  was  in  a  very 
wretched  state  in  the  E-oman  Church,  "this  is  not  a 
sufficient  reason  for  separating  from  it.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  worse  things  are  going  on  within  it  the 
more  should  we  cling  to  it ;  for  it  is  not  by  separa- 
tion that  we  shall  make  it  better."  Luther  was  not, 
then,  spoiling  for  a  fight ;  in  truth,  he  fought  only  be- 
cause he  had  to.  And  I  do  not  know  of  a  sublimer 
instance  of  the  courage  and  the  daring  and  the  defi- 
ance which  a  simple  inward  necessity  may  put  into 
a  man.  He  took  his  stand  because  he  must ;  because, 
as  he  said  before  the  assembled  princes  at  Worms,  he 
could  not  do  otherwise. 

I  need  not  recount  the  steps  by  which  Luther  was 
led  to  break  with  the  Church.  I  need  not  recall  his 
lonely  spiritual  struggles  in  the  monastery  at  Erfurt, 
when  he  came  to  feel  the  futility  of  all  mere  outward 
works,  and  that  only  by  faith  can  man  be  justified, — 
though  this  was  the  seed-thought  of  the  Eeforma- 
tion.  I  need  not  describe  his  disputations  with  Eck 
at  Leipsic,  where  he  realized  that  his  own  views  were 
like  those  of  Huss  and  Wyclif  before  him,  and  hence 
if  popes  and  councils  had  condemned  them,  that  popes 
and  councils  could  not  be  infallible.  I  need  not  re- 
count the  stages  of  his  rapid  intellectual  development 
at  about  this  time  ;  how  his  spirit  seemed  to  rise  at 
the  rumor  of  a  papal  Bull  against  him ;  how  he  saw 
that  his  cause  was  the  cause  of  Germany,  and  hence 
issued  his  address  to  the  German  nobility  ;  how  in  an 
almost  boyish  exuberance  of  spirits  he  burned  the 
pope's  Bull ;  and  how  at  last  he  took  his  world-historic 
stand  before  the  imperial  diet  at  Worms,  saying  he 
would  not  recant,  knowing  that  to  act  against  con- 


246  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

science,  though  a  mighty  church  and  a  mighty  empire 
should  approve,  is  neither  right  nor  safe. 

But  though  the  man  is  great,  the  significance  of  the 
scene  is  greater.  That  was  the  first  act  of  the  Prot- 
estant revolution.  Ill  would  it  have  fared  with  the 
world  had  Erasmus  stood  there.  He,  in  common  with 
other  scholars  of  the  day,  was  disaffected ;  he  wrote 
satires  on  the  monks  and  schoolmen,  and  in  general 
sympathized  with  Luther ;  but  he  would  stay  in  the 
Church,  would  reform  from  within,  and  conciliate  and 
compromise  at  any  cost.  He  continued  his  satires 
and  preached  tolerance  to  the  last ;  but  he  could  not 
endure  schism,  proclaiming  that  "peaceful  error  was 
better  than  tempestuous  truth."  It  was  as  it  is  to- 
day with  the  Broad  Churchmen  who  stay  in  the  Eng- 
lish establishment,  or  the  Liberals  in  general  who  feel 
that  they  cannot  stand  on  their  own  feet  outside  the 
Church.  Above  every  other  fear  is  that  of  breaking 
with  the  past,  of  a  seeming  disloyalty  to  the  institu- 
tions in  which  they  have  been  nurtured.  Luther  knew 
but  one  thing  however,  —  loyalty  to  the  convictions 
that  were  in  him ;  if  the  Church  did  not  give  him 
freedom  to  hold  to  and  express  them,  he  would  do 
so  all  the  same. 

We  can  hardly  imagine  to-day  what  an  immense 
fact  resting  on  the  past  Luther  had  to  face.  To  break 
with  orthodoxy  or  any  form  of  Protestant  Christianity 
is  an  insignificant  thing  compared  with  putting  one- 
self out  of  the  pale  of  that  communion  which  held 
the  keys  of  earth  almost  as  truly  as  it  seemed  to 
those  of  heaven.  For  if  the  Catholic  Church  is  com- 
paratively harmless  now,  then  it  was  an  empire  that 
brooked  no  rival.     The  State  was  no   more  than  a 


SUCCESS  AND  PAILUKE  OF  PROTESTANTISM.  247 

body,  with  the  Church  for  its  soul.  It  was  a  univer- 
sal empire,  and  knew  no  national  distinctions ;  it  had 
its  system  of  taxation,  like  any  other  kingdom,  —  a 
tenth  part  of  the  produce  of  the  soil  of  Christendom 
went  to  it ;  it  owned  almost  a  third  of  the  land  of 
Europe.  The  officers  of  this  empire  were  not  amena- 
ble to  the  civil  jurisdiction,  —  they  could  be  tried  only 
in  their  own  courts,  and  under  the  cover  of  this  pro- 
tection to  themselves  they  could  fleece  their  flocks 
about  as  they  liked ;  they  alone  could  marry  people, 
and  they  alone  could  grant  divorces  ;  they  had  the 
disposition  of  the  property  of  deceased  persons,  —  a 
will  had  to  be  proved  in  their  courts ;  they  alone 
buried  the  dead,  and  could  refuse  Christian  burial  in 
the  churchyards.  And  this  empire  touching  men  in 
almost  every  relation  in  life  centred  in  Eome,  and  its 
affairs,  it  was  well  known,  were  administered  not  for 
the  benefit  of  its  subjects  everywhere,  but  to  heighten 
the  influence  and  pomp  and  power  and  to  swell  the 
revenues  of  Koman  popes  and  cardinals,  —  even  as  in 
the  old  days  of  the  Caesars,  the  masses  of  the  people 
scattered  through  the  provinces  were  ruled  by  gover- 
nors, not  for  their  own  but  for  the  conqueror's  good. 
It  was  this  empire  over  the  souls  and  bodies  of  men ; 
over  life  and  death,  and  what  was  believed  to  come 
after  death ;  over  what  Inen  should  think,  and  how 
they  should  act,  —  and  not  in  the  name  of  truth  and 
the  progressing  knowledge  of  men,  but  of  a  view  of  the 
world  which  almost  every  scientific  discovery  and  al- 
most every  independent  philosophical  reflection  tended 
to  undermine,  —  it  was  this  old  antiquated  empire  that 
was  broken,  smitten  on  its  crown  and  set  to  totter- 
ing on  its  feet,  when  Luther  lifted  up  his  voice  over 


248  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

three  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago.  All  hail,  0  valiant 
man,  for  this  first  and  mighty  blow !  We  breathe 
freer  now  at  the  very  thought  of  it.  Other  blows  .will 
follow  after ;  and  notwithstanding  all  the  reforms  the 
papal  empire  may  undertake,  notwithstanding  all  the 
efforts  it  may  make  to  show  its  harmony  with  mod- 
ern thought  and  the  principles  of  political  freedom, 
notwithstanding  all  its  councils  of  Trent,  and  all  its 
Capels  leading  captive  here  and  there  a  weak-minded 
man  or  silly  woman,  it  will  never  again  have  its  old 
supremacy.  It  is  an  outlived  institution  ;  humanity 
and  the  spirit  of  progress  have  passed  it  by. 

This  was  the  first  success  of  Protestantism.  A 
second  is  closely  related  to  it,  and  for  this  too  we  are 
indebted  to  Luther  himself.  Goodness  had  become 
an  external,  formal  thing  in  the  Catholic  Church.  It 
always  tends  to  become  so.  It  first  creates  certain 
forms  and  then  loses  itself  in  them ;  and  as  men  are 
counted  good  citizens  who  pay  their  taxes,  vote,  and 
hold  ofiice,  irrespective  of  their  thought  and  motive 
in  so  doing,  so  men  were  counted  good  Christians 
who  simply  obeyed  the  rules  of  the  empire  I  have 
described,  who  said  so  many  Aves  or  Pater-nosters, 
did  so  much  fasting  or  penance,  gave  so  much  money 
or  received  of  such  and  such  sacraments.  That  is, 
there  was  an  external  test  of  character,  —  and  the 
significance  of  Luther  is  that  he  proposed  an  internal 
test.  In  one  of  his  earliest  discourses,  two  years  be- 
fore he  published  his  theses,  he  strongly  urged  the 
doctrine  that  piety  consists  not  in  outward  works, 
but  in  an  inward  principle  ;  that  an  act  in  itself  good 
even  becomes  sinful  if  the  motive  is  sinful.^  Luther 
1  Sears's  Life  of  Luther,  p.  169. 


SUCCESS  AND  FAILURE  OF  PROTESTANTISM.    249 

did  not  use  philosophical  language,  and  his  thought 
was  cast  entirely  in  theological  moulds ;  but  the  fun- 
damental significance  of  his  great  doctrine  of  justifi- 
cation by  faith  rather  than  by  works  seems  to  me  to 
have  been  this,  —  that  the  inward  attitude  alone  deter- 
mines the  worth  of  a  man  ;  so  that  though  a  man's 
whole  outward  life  were  right,  yet  if  the  thought  or 
impulse  that  lay  within  and  behind  were  merely  sel- 
fish, he  would  still  be  in  the  wrong.  Luther  did  not 
say  works  were  of  no  account,  nor  does  his  principle 
of  justification  involve  of  itself  any  contempt  of  the 
rules  and  ritual  of  the  Church ;  he  did  say  that  works 
or  acts  severed  from  their  motive,  and  conformity  to 
rites  and  rules  in  themselves,  were  of  no  account,  — yes, 
that  when  viewed  as  themselves  giving  those  who 
practise  them  moral  worth,  they  were  harmful  and  an 
offence.  Only,  Luther  said  "  in  the  sight  of  God '' 
where  I  have  said  "  moral  ;'^  and  an  offence  to  him 
was  not  simply  to  an  ideal  law,  but  to  a  j)ersonal, 
angry  God.  Protestantism  thus  sprang  from  a  quick- 
ening of  the  conscience  and  a  deepening  of  the  moral 
life.  Luther  could  find  no  rest  in  fastings  and  pen- 
ances and  almsgiving,  — they  humbled  the  body,  they 
did  not  purify  the  soul.  It  was  at  the  centre  of  his 
being  that  he  wanted  rest ;  and  he  found  it,  while 
still  at  the  Augustinian  monastery  in  Erfurt,  in  the 
suggestions  of  a  passage  of  Scripture,  "  The  just  shall 
live  by  faith  ; ''  and  ever  and  anon  it  would  ring  in 
his  ears  and  send  a  strange  peace  over  his  soul,  — 
"  The  just  shall  live  by  faith."  May  I  give  a  mod- 
ern version  of  that  old  experience  ?  In  the  charming 
Norwegian  story  of  Arne,  a  simple  peasant  girl  says, 
"  I  often  think  there  's  something  that  sings  when  all 


250  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

is  still ; ''  and  she  spoke  in  a  voice  so  soft  and  low, 
the  narrative  goes  on,  that  her  companion  felt  as 
if  he  had  heard  it  now  for  the  first  time.  "  It  is 
the  good  within  our  own  souls,"  he  answered.  And 
it  is  true  that  when  a  man,  instead  of  seeking  to  do 
this  or  that  external  thing  which  will  commend  him 
before  the  world  or  give  him  a  kind  of  vain-glory  in 
his  own  eyes,  turns  and  gives  himself  over  to  the 
good,  forever  to  obey  it,  something  does  sing  within ; 
and  whether  we  call  it  the  good  or  God,  whether  we 
say  "  the  good  sings  "  or  "  God  is  well  pleased,"  it  is 
all  the  same  ;  the  differences  are  differences  of  dialect, 
not  of  fact.  Protestantism  is  thus,  so  far  as  it  is  true 
to  the  original  Lutheran  spirit,  more  inward,  more 
searching  than  Catholicism ;  its  religion  is  more  per- 
sonal ;  it  may  make  less  show,  but  it  has  more  sub- 
stance ;  it  places  men  face  to  face  with  the  central 
truth  of  things,  it  brings  them  immediately  before  the 
nameless  Authority  of  which  all  else  is  shadow  and 
reflection.  I  do  not  say  this  of  Protestantism  every- 
where. In  England  it  was  more  a  political  affair,  and 
instead  of  heightening  the  moral  life,  it  came  into 
being  only  with  a  lowering  of  it,  in  obedience  to  the 
intrigues  of  Henry  VIII.  The  Puritans  were  the  first 
true  Protestants  in  England,  as  the  Huguenots  were 
in  Erance,  and  the  followers  of  Zwingle  and  Calvin 
in  Switzerland.  But  in  general  Protestantism  surely 
brought  a  new  moral  seriousness  into  life.  Compare 
but  for  one  moment  Luther  or  Zwingle  or  Calvin  with 
Leo  X.,  and  see  the  difference  in  the  type  of  man. 

In  another  way,  also.  Protestantism  has  been  a 
success ;  it  has  given  us  freedom  of  conscience.  It 
must  be  confessed  that  here  Luther  himself  is  not  so 


SUCCESS  AND  FAILURE  OF  PROTESTANTISM.  251 

great  as  the  logic  of  the  movement  which  he  started. 
Luther  was  no  advocate  of  freedom  of  conscience  as 
a  principle ;  he  desired  freedom  simply  for  his  own 
conscience.  But  the  logic  of  history  does  not  rest 
on  any  individuaFs  partial  interpretation  of  it.  When 
Luther  said  at  Worms,  "  It  is  not  safe  nor  right 
to  do  anything  against  conscience ;  here  stand  I,  so 
help  me  God,"  he  virtually  stood  for  every  sincere  re- 
former since  ;  he  spoke  for  every  progressive  move- 
ment in  thought  and  society  down  to  our  day.  It  is 
not  fair  then,  to  my  mind,  to  charge  the  narrowness 
and  bigotry  of  many  Protestants,  whether  individuals 
or  churches,  to  their  Protestantism ;  it  is  to  be  charged 
to  them  as  men  or  as  associations,  for  narrowness 
and  bigotry  too  easily  attach  themselves  to  men  and 
associations  :  it  may  sometimes  be  charged  to  them 
as  Christians  and  as  Christian  churches,  but  it  can 
only  be  due  to  the  lack  of  real  Protestantism.  The 
very  meaning  of  Protestantism  is  freedom.  Puri- 
tanism was  a  characteristic  Protestant  movement,  for 
it  was  an  assertion  of  conscientious  scruples  against 
the  laxness  and  formalism  of  the  English  church. 
Unitarianism  was  another  characteristic  Protestant 
movement,  for  it  was  a  revolt  of  reason  and  con- 
science against  the  dogmas  of  Orthodoxy.  When  any 
one  stands  up  for  the  private  conviction  of  his  soul 
against  whatever  assembly  of  magnates  or  respecta- 
bilities, he  is  in  very  essence  a  Protestant.  If  Luther 
then  persecuted  Carlstadt,  if  Calvin  burned  Servetus, 
if  the  Puritans  banished  Eoger  Williams,  they  were 
so  far  not  Protestants ;  and  in  the  very  name  of  the 
principles  by  which  they  secured  their  own  freedom, 
they  may  be  condemned.     It  takes  a  long  while  for 


252  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

a  principle  thrown  into  history  to  work  out  its  conse- 
quences, but  sooner  or  later  it  will.  This  principle 
of  freedom  of  conscience  is  perhaps  first  realized  in 
any  completeness  in  this  country ;  but  it  is  a  fruit  of 
Protestantism,  —  it  was  thrown  in  among  the  forces 
of  history,  though  he  little  knew  all  he  was  doing,  by 
the  hand  of  Martin  Luther. 

As  a  fourth  success  of  Protestantism,  and  as  a  re- 
sult of  this  spirit  of  freedom  working  in  connection 
with  the  tendencies  of  modern  thought,  not  only  the 
old  church  but  the  old  religion  is  gradually  break- 
ing up.  Christianity  itself  is  dissolving  and  passing 
away.  Christianity  was  not  half  so  much  hurt  in 
the  last  century  by  Paine  and  Voltaire  as  it  is  in 
the  minds  of  the  most  serious  and  thoughtful  men 
to-day  by  the  new  indirect  influences  of  science  and 
historical  criticism.  Men  who  never  hear  popular 
liberal  lectures,  who  have  never  read  Paine  or  Vol- 
taire, are  getting  a  new  view  of  the  world  in  the 
very  intellectual  atmosphere  they  breathe,  and  the 
old  ideas  of  miracle  and  prayer  and  Providence  drop 
away  so  silently  that  they  do  not  know  they  have  lost 
them.  The  new  thought  is  in  literature,  in  poetry, 
in  science,  in  the  daily  newspaper.  The  differences 
between  cultivated  men  in  all  churches  and  in  none 
are  really  surprisingly  small.  If  we  do  not  ask  for 
particular  opinions,  much  less  attack  them,  but  simply 
note  how  they  are  reflected  in  a  man's  view  of  life, 
society,  trade,  politics,  —  and  this  is  the  only  real 
test,  —  educated  Presbyterians  do  not  differ  essen- 
tially from  educated  Baptists  or  Methodists  or  Unita- 
rians. Their  particular  denominational  connections 
are  a  matter  of  birth   and  tradition ;   their  religion 


SUCCESS  AND  FAILURE  OF  PROTESTANTISM.    253 

is,  under  a  disguise  of  pious  names  and  phrases,  a 
reverence  for  goodness  and  a  confidence  that  the 
universe  is  on  that  side ;  their  Christianity  is  much 
like  that  of  a  friend  who  once  said  to  me  he  was  not 
anxious  for  the  name  Christian,  but  if  any  one  should 
say  he  was  not  a  Christian,  he  should  resent  it.  The 
special  ideas  that  were  at  the  foundation  of  the  dif- 
ferent denominations  have  little  interest  for  any  man 
now,  unless  he  be  an  antiquarian  or  a  zealot.  Indeed, 
no  other  result  could  well  follow  from  the  Protestant 
principle  of  freedom  of  conscience  and  private  judg- 
ment; for  it  could  hardly  be  expected  that  private 
judgment  would  rest  with  simply  interpreting  the 
Bible,  —  sooner  or  later  it  must  essay  to  judge  of  the 
worth  of  the  contents  of  the  Bible.  Luther  helped 
to  strengthen  the  mind  in  the  consciousness  of  its 
own  perceptions  over  against  the  authority  of  the 
Church  ;  when  the  mind  reaches  perceptions  incon- 
sistent with  the  teachings  of  Scripture,  the  same  logic 
inspires  to  a  similar  confidence  here.  Nor  can  any 
sacred  person  more  than  any  sacred  book  be  allowed 
to  remain  an  unquestioned  authority  over  the  mind; 
yet  when  Jesus  ceases  to  be  an  authority,  Christian- 
ity in  any  distinctive  sense  ceases  to  be.  Thus  fear- 
lessly and  relentlessly  is  the  logic  of  Protestantism 
conducting  out  of  the  very  religion  in  which  it  was 
born.  Luther  would  have  stood  aghast  at  those  who 
no  longer  call  themselves  Christians,  to  whom  Jesus 
is  no  longer  a  Lord  and  Master ;  yet  no  other  result 
could  ultimately  follow,  and  he  is  finally  responsible 
for  it,  and  to  the  future  this  result  will  be  counted  as 
one  of  the  successes  of  Protestantism.  For  humanity 
cannot  wear  forever  its  old  garments ;  as  it  casts  off 


254  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

old  churches,  so  it  does  old  religions.  The  spirit  of 
the  future  calls  upon  it  to  do  so;  for  the  future  is 
rich  with  possibilities,  and  will  yield  grander  things 
than  ever  the  past  has  known. 

As  I  pass  now  to  my  fifth  point,  I  am  at  loss  to  know 
whether  to  rank  it  among  the  successes  or  failures 
of  Protestantism.  It  is  that  Protestantism  has  prac- 
tically given  us  the  Bible  (for  it  was  almost  a  sealed 
book  before),  and  particularly  that  it  has  brought 
us  face  to  face  with  Jesus  and  the  apostles.  The 
common  people  in  the  time  of  Luther  knew  little 
or  nothing  of  the  Bible ;  Jesus  and  the  apostles  they 
vaguely  thought  of  as  the  founders  and  pillars  of  the 
great  empire  that  was  everywhere  about  them,  rather 
than  as  living  figures  in  history.  And  if  the  secular 
renaissance  is  to  be  commended  for  reviving  an  in- 
terest in  the  old  Greek  and  Eoman  literatures,  irre- 
spective of  ecclesiastical  commentary,  so  is  the  later 
religious  renaissance  worthy  to  be  praised  for  putting 
the  old  Jewish  and  the  early  Christian  literatures 
into  tongues  in  which  every  one  could  read  them  for 
himself.  Everywhere  as  a  result  of  the  Eeformation 
the  Bible  came  to  be  the  property  of  the  common 
man,  and  Jesus  and  the  apostles  were  seen  somewhat 
as  they  actually  were.  So  far  Protestantism  was  a 
success.  For  I  regard  it  as  no  part  of  a  genuine  radi- 
calism to  condemn  the  Bible  indiscriminately,  and  to 
wish  that  the  world  should  know  nothing  of  it.  The 
Bible  has  had  its  uses  in  history ;  it  testifies  to  and 
is  the  product  of  some  of  the  creative  periods  in  his- 
tory. Most  of  the  prophetic  writings,  for  example,  of 
the  Old  Testament,  the  narratives  about  Jesus  and  the 
writings  of  his  early  followers  in  the  New  Testament, 


SUCCESS  AND  FAILURE  OF  PROTESTANTISM.  255 

came  from  real  men,  to  whom  religion  was  not  a  sham, 
and  whose  minds  were  intent  on  the  supreme  thing 
in  life  ;  namely,  the  accomplishment  of  righteousness. 
The  very  superstitious  reverence  for  the  Bible  that  so 
many  have  had  is  a  testimony  to  its  power :  Cicero 
and  Plato  and  Aristotle  never  touched  the  heart  and 
conscience  deep  enough  to  produce  any  superstitions 
about  themselves.  Nevertheless,  while  in  one  way  the 
open  Bible  of  Protestantism  was  one  of  its  successes, 
in  another  it  has  been  and  is  coming  more  and  more 
to  be  seen  to  be  one  of  its  failures.  The  Bible  glows 
with  the  idea  of  righteousness  as  no  other  book  does 
that  has  become  the  property  of  our  Western  world, 
and  to  those  who  have  the  wit  to  distinguish  substance 
from  form  it  is  still,  and  may  always  be,  a  means  of 
moral  inspiration.  But  the  whole  intellectual  setting 
of  this  idea  is  no  longer  true  to  us.  Eighteousness 
gains  nothing  in  authority  to  us  by  being  regarded  as 
the  will  of  a  supernatural  being ;  our  confidence  in 
its  triumph  in  the  world  is  nowise  heightened  by  the 
picture  of  a  judgment  which  shall  some  time  separate 
the  righteous  and  wicked  as  sheep  and  goats.  The 
open  Bible  was  not  even  an  altogether  successful 
defence  against  the  Eoman  Church.  True,  the  Bible 
said  nothing  of  the  Koman  Church  or  the  Pope,  or 
of  councils  or  purgatory,  or  of  the  intercession  of 
the  saints ;  and  this  to  many  narrow-minded  Prot- 
estants may  have  been  enough.  But  the  Bible  does 
furnish  premises  from  which  some  Catholic  doctrines 
are  by  no  means  illogical  conclusions.  If  one  man 
spoke  with  infallible  authority,  is  there  any  reason 
in  the  nature  of  things  why  others  should  not  speak 
with  the  same  authority  ?     If  one  man  could  forgive 


256  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

sins,  it  can  hardly  be  denied  that  he  might  have  left 
this  power  to  others  who  should  come  after  him,  — 
as  indeed  he  is  reported  to  have  done.  If  we  may- 
pray  for  those  who  are  still  on  the  earth  and  our 
prayers  may  avail,  why  may  we  not  for  those  who 
have  gone  into  the  mysterious  beyond  ?  If  .the  inter- 
cession of  righteous  men  now  may  avail  before  God, 
why  not  much  more  truly  the  intercession  of  those 
who  have  become  saints  in  heaven  ?  Protestants  af- 
fect a  great  horror  that  Catholic  priests  should  claim, 
for  example,  to  forgive  sins  ;  the  Pharisees  manifested 
a  similar  horror  when  Jesus  claimed  to,  yet  we  read 
that  he  gave  the  same  power  he  had  himself  to  his 
apostles,  saying,  "Whosesoever  sins  ye  remit  they 
are  remitted,  and  whosesoever  ye  retain,  they  are  re- 
tained.'^  ^  Was  there  some  peculiar  reason  why  men 
should  be  forgiven  in  the  first  century  of  the  Christian 
era  that  does  not  hold  of  the  subsequent  centuries  ? 
But  however  lame  an  instrument  the  Bible  may  be 
against  Catholicism,  it  can  still  less  be  a  rule  of  faith 
and  practice  for  men  to-day.  Its  idea  of  righteous- 
ness is  of  perennial  value,  but  the  whole  stage  of  cul- 
ture in  which  it  was  written  is  now  superseded  by  a 
higher  stage.  We  cannot  think  as  the  Bible  would 
have  us  think,  we  cannot  believe  or  hope  as  Jesus  and 
the  apostles  would  have  us  believe  and  hope,  we  can- 
not live  and  act  as  they  command  us  to  act ;  we  are 
separated  from  them  not  merely  by  eighteen  centuries 
of  time,  but  by  eighteen  centuries  of  experience,  of 
knowledge,  and  of  thought.  Passing  over  minor  dif- 
ferences, what  man  in  sympathy  with  the  culture  of 

1  John  XX.  23.    If  this  Gospel  be  regarded  as  of  doubtful  au- 
thority, a  saying  of  similar  tenor  is  found  in  Matthew  xvi.  19. 


SUCCESS  AND  FAILURE  OF  PROTESTANTISM.    257 

to-day  can  believe  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  as  Jesus 
believed  in  it ;  what  man  can  look  out  on  the  world 
and  trust  in  a  personal  Providence  as  Jesus  trusted  ; 
what  man  can  believe  in  miracle  as  Jesus  believed, 
or  pray  as  Jesus  prayed,  or  entertain  the  thought  of 
Jesus  that  Jesus  had  of  himself  ?  Jesus  is  no  longer 
authority  to  us,  the  apostles  are  no  longer  authority 
to  us ;  the  whole  Bible  represents  what  the  Germans 
call  an  uherwundener  Standpunkt  (a  point  of  view  that 
has  become  outgrown).  Men  only  fancy  the  Bible  is 
authority  to  them,  as  they  are  not  really  acquainted 
with  it,  as  they  have  never  taken  the  pains  to  look  at 
it  in  the  light  of  the  circumstances  in  which  it  was 
written.  Protestantism  hoping  to  rule  the  world  with 
its  open  Bible  is  a  failure. 

Another  failure  of  Protestantism  is  that  it  has  not 
given  us  any  new  faith,  such  as  the  world  needs. 
Protestants  have  for  the  most  part  simply  clung  to 
certain  remnants  or  shreds  of  an  old  garment;  they 
do  not  see  that  humanity  cannot  live  on  remnants,  and 
they  have  given  to  the  world  no  positive  new  regen- 
erative principle.  The  Catholic  Church  has  all  the 
positive  parts  of  the  Protestant  system  of  doctrine. 
The  Unitarians,  for  example,  save  themselves  by 
keeping  the  Christian  name  and  professing  disciple- 
ship  for  Jesus ;  but  Catholics  are  all  Christians  and 
all  disciples  of  Jesus.  Orthodox  Christians  believe 
in  the  Divinity  of  Jesus,  the  Trinity,  and  the  Atone- 
ment ;  but  Catholics  believe  in  all  these  doctrines  and 
many  more.  Episcopal  churches  have  their  priests 
and  bishops  and  ritual ;  but  all  this  the  Catholic 
Church  has  in  much  grander  style.  Por  freedom  of 
conscience  and  thought  is  hardly  a  positive,  but  only 

17 


258  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

a  formal  principle.  It  means  standing  by  the  truth, 
as  we  see  it ;  or,  at  best,  readiness  for  truth :  it  does 
not  mean  new  and  positive  truth  itself,  —  and  before 
there  can  be  a  new  faith,  there  must  be  new  ideas. 
Again,  the  holding  of  an  internal  as  opposed  to  an 
external  test  of  character  is  not  enough.  The  thought 
alone  gives  dignity  to  the  life ;  but  what  shall  be 
the  thought?  Protestantism  has  developed  no  new 
thought ;  it  has  no  new  ideas  of  life  and  society ;  it 
has  seemed  to  regard  moral  idealism  as  exhausted  in 
the  statements  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount :  it  has 
even  no  genuine  understanding  of  these  statements, 
for  if  it  had,  it  would  take  the  hint  they  give,  and  elab- 
orate an  ideal  of  social  righteousness  for  the  world. 
For  this  is  wliat  the  world  wants,  —  not  the  Bible, 
nor  revisions  of  it,  nor  a  rational  understanding  of  it ; 
no,  nor  Jesus  himself,  nor  a  true  estimate  of  his  life 
and  work,  but  an  era  of  social  righteousness.  This  is 
what  Protestantism  has  not  given  us,  what  it  has 
apparently  had  no  aim  of  giving  us ;  for  its  thought 
of  a  perfect  social  order  is  nowise  different  from  that 
of  Catholicism,  as  being  something  that  has  elsewhere 
its  accomplishment,  something  which  is  not  of  our 
creation  and  has  slight  bearings  on  this  actual  order 
in  which  we  now  live.  Protestantism,  as  Christianity 
generally,  has  given  a  kind  of  sanction  to  the  order  of 
society  that  it  finds,  and  feels  slight  impulse  to  create 
a  new  one.  Therefore  a  new  religion  must  come,  not 
preaching  acquiescence  and  submission,  but  holding 
up  a  contrast  to  what  we  see  about  us,  —  saying  that 
in  the  idea  alone  is  sacredness  and  authority,  and  that 
contrary  facts,  though  as  secure  as  the  earth  and  as 
habitual  as  day  and  night,  have  no  warrant  before  it. 


SUCCESS  AND  FAILURE  OF  PROTESTANTISM.    259 

The  world  needs  no  kind  of  an  ecclesiastical  religion, 
with  priests  and  prayers  and  holy  books ;  it  needs  a 
religipn  of  justice.  In  the  new  religion,  nothing  will 
count  but  clear  thoughts  and  honest  deeds.  Prayer, 
trust  in  an  outside  justice,  all  reliance  on  another 
for  what  man  must  do  himself,  will  be  abandoned  ; 
man  will  have  his  connection  with  the  Unseen  in 
the  command  which  issues  from  it,  "Thou  must  do 
the  justice  that  thou  cravest,"  and  in  his  answering 
obedience. 

Yes,  Protestantism  in  the  person  of  Luther  cast  the 
weight  of  its  influence  against  the  era  of  social  right- 
eousness on  which  the  hearts  of  the  poor  oppressed 
German  peasants  were  set.  It  must  suffice  to-day 
to  refer  to  this  single  instance  of  Protestant  faith- 
lessness. The  German  peasant  wanted  freedom,  —  he 
wanted  ecclesiastical  and  political  freedom.  The 
Church  and  the  feudal  lord  united  in  despoiling  him ; 
he  had  no  rights  worth  mentioning  against  either. 
He  was  bound  to  the  soil,  was  obliged  to  render  any 
service  the  lord  called  for,  and  had  lost  his  right  to 
the  old  common  woods  and  fishing  grounds  and  pas- 
tures ;  and  to  the  Church  he  paid  not  only  tithes,  — 
the  tenth  part  of  all  his  corn,  grass,  colts,  calves, 
lambs,  pigs,  geese  and  chickens,  and  even  every  tenth 
egg, — but  he  paid  money  for  every  particular  ser- 
vice he  got  from  the  Church.  A  Catholic  writer  of 
that  period,  brother  to  the  secretary  of  the  Emperor 
Charles  V.,  says  :  "We  can  hardly  get  anything  from 
Christian  ministers  without  money ;  at  baptism,  money ; 
at  bishoping,  money ;  at'  marriage,  money ;  for  con- 
fession, money  —  no,  not  extreme  unction  without 
money.    They  will  ring  no  bells  without  money,  no 


260  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

burial  in  the  church  without  money ;  so  that  it  seemeth 
that  Paradise  is  shut  upon  them  that  have  no  money. 
.  .  .  The  rich  man  may  readily  get  indulgence^,  but 
the  poor  none,  because  he  wanteth  money  to  pay  for 
them."  No  wonder  the  peasants  protested  against 
such  a  double  tyranny.  They  drew  up  twelve  arti- 
cles, in  which  they  stated  their  demands,  — 

1.  The  right  to  choose  their  own  pastors.  2.  They 
would  pay  tithe  of  corn ;  but  small  tithes,  as  every 
tenth  calf  or  pig  or  egg,  they  would  not  pay.  3.  They 
would  be  free,  and  no  longer  serfs  and  bondmen. 
4.  Wild  game  and  fish  to  be  free  to  all.  5.  Woods 
and  forests  to  belong  to  all  for  fuel.  6.  No  services 
of  labor  to  be  more  than  were  required  of  their  fore- 
fathers. 7.  If  more  service  required,  wages  must  be 
paid  for  it.  8.  Eent,  when  above  the  value  of  the 
land,  to  be  properly  valued  and  lowered.  9.  Punish- 
ments for  crime  to  be  fixed.  10.  Common  land  to 
be  again  given  up  to  common  use.  11.  Death  gifts 
(that  is,  the  right  of  the  lord  to  take  the  best  chattel 
of  the  deceased  tenant)  to  be  done  away  with.  12. 
Any  of  these  articles  proved  to  be  contrary  to  the 
Scriptures  or  God's  justice  to  be  null  and  void. 

What  a  chance  in  view  of  this  for  a  religion  that 
meant  to  be  of  any  use  in  this  world,  that  meant  to 
vindicate  the  right  and  put  down  the  wrong,  to  assert 
itself !  By  this  time  many  of  the  princes  had  be- 
come Protestant.  Did  their  Protestantism  mean  any 
increased  sense  of  social  justice  ?  What  did  Luther 
himself  say  ?  He  was  not  indeed  without  sympathy 
for  the  peasants,  —  he  was  too  much  of  a  man,  to  say 
nothing  of  Christian,  for  that ;  and  he  did  not  fail, 
as  a  valiant  man,  to  give  the  princes  his  opinion  of 


SUCCESS  AND  FAILURE  OF  PROTESTANTISM.    261 

them.  Even  before  the  articles  were  published,  he 
said :  "  The  common  man,  tried  beyond  all  endurance, 
overwhelmed  with  intolerable  burdens,  will  not  and 
cannot  any  longer  tamely  submit ;  and  he  has  doubt- 
less good  reasons  for  striking  with  the  flail  and  the 
club,  as  he  threatens  to  do/'  Again,  of  the  articles 
he  says  to  the  princes  that  some  of  them  "contain 
demands  so  obviously  just,  that  the  mere  circum- 
stance of  their  requiring  to  be  brought  forward  dis- 
honors you  before  God  and  man ; ''  and  he  reminds 
them  that  "  government  was  not  instituted  for  its  own 
ends,  nor  to  make  use  of  the  persons  subject  to  it  for 
the  accomplishment  of  its  own  caprices  and  evil  pas- 
sions, but  for  the  interests  and  advantage  of  the  peo- 
ple. Now,  the  people  have  become  fully  impressed 
with  this  fact,  and  will  no  longer  tolerate  your  shame- 
ful extortions.  Of  what  benefit  were  it  to  a  peasant 
that  his  field  should  produce  as  many  florins  as  it 
•does  grains  of  corn,  if  his  master  may  despoil  him 
of  the  produce,  and  lavish  like  dirt  the  money  he 
has  thus  derived  from  his  vassal  in  fine  clothes,  fine 
castles,  fine  eating  and  drinking  ?  "  But  when  the 
princes  refused  to  yield  to  his  exhortations,  when 
the  peasants  began  to  make  good  their  words  by 
their  deeds,  when  they  threatened  to  arise  in  revolt, 
Luther  himself  yielded,  and  practically  went  over  to 
the  other  side. 

It  is  not  a  pleasant  task  to  quote  Luther's  language 
against  the  peasants  after  they  were  once  fairly  started 
on  their  violent  career.  It  is  not  the  man  but  the 
churchman  who  speaks.  His  theory  was,  "  Christians 
must  suffer  rather  than  take  up  arms  ; "  they  must 
bear  the  cross,  —  "  that   is   a  Christian's  right,"  he 


262  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

said,  "he  has  no  other."  He  spoke  of  Christians  as 
flocks  of  sheep,  not  to  be  tended  but  to  be  slaughtered, 
one  after  the  other,  —  "Nicht  Weideschaf  —  Schlacht- 
schaf !  nur  so  hin ;  eins  nach  dem  anderen ! "  If  they 
rebelled  against  the  civil  power,  there  was  but  one 
fate  for  them.  As  to  the  "murderous  and  robbing 
hordes  of  peasants,"  as  he  styled  them,  he  said  to  the 
princes,  "  Let  them  be  destroyed,  strangled,  stabbed, 
secretly  or  publicly,  by  whomsoever  is  able  to  do  it, 
even  as  a  mad  dog  is  killed,  right  away !"  I  do  not 
believe  that  this  was  all  due  to  cowardice  and  a  de- 
sire to  side  with  princely  authority,  —  though  these 
motives  may  have  partly  operated  with  Luther ;  for 
as  he  did  not  fail  to  commend  clemency  at  the  end  of 
the  war,  he  did  not  during  its  continuance  cease  to 
speak  of  the  "mad  tyranny"  of  princes  and  lords. 
In  my  judgment,  it  was  not  Luther  merely  that  failed 
at  this  critical  moment ;  it  was  not  merely  Protes- 
tantism that  failed,  —  it  was  Christianity,  and  its 
impracticable,  unphilosophical,  and  untrue  doctrine 
of  non-resistance.  It  was  the  Christian  doctrine  that 
we  are  not  to  take  justice  into  our  own  hands,  but 
must  leave  it  to  another,  that  was  answerable  for  the 
horrors  of  the  Peasant's  War.  Luther  had  said  this, 
and  quoted  Scripture  passages  to  this  effect  from  the 
very  start.  There  was  not  so  much  a  change  in  his 
view  or  his  sympathies,  as  in  the  circumstances  to 
which  his  view  could  apply.  He  said  from  the  begin- 
ning such  things  as  these  :  "  To  revolt  is  to  act  like 
heathen;  the  duty  of  the  Christian  is  to  be  patient, 
not  to  fight ;  defensive  justice  is  for  God  alone.  No 
one  can  be  his  own  judge  ;  an  attempt  to  be  that  is 
something  which  God  cannot  endure,  —  it  is  against 


SUCCESS  AND  FAILURE  OF  PROTESTANTISM.    263 

God  and  God  is  against  it."  Such  a  view  is  to  men* 
to-day  mythological ;  but  to  Luther,  following  closely 
after  the  teaching  of  his  Master,  it  was  sober  truth. 
But  if  Luther  had  been  more  of  a  heathen,  he  would 
have  stood  before  the  world  a  truer  man.  Not  on 
the  basis  of  such  a  view  has  progress  been  made  in 
the  world.  Had  Christianity  been  the  rule  of  life 
for  intelligent  Frenchmen  a  hundred  years  ago,  there 
would  have  been  no  French  Eevolution ;  had  the 
thought  that  paralyzed  the  arm  of  Luther  been  the 
conviction  of  our  forefathers  in  1776,  this  magnificent 
republic  might  still  have  been  a  British  province. 
Progress  is  with  those  who  know  that  justice  is  to  be 
done  by  them,  who  would  not  honor  themselves  did 
they  not  defend  themselves  against  those  who  out- 
rage their  rights.  I  do  not  answer  for  all  that  the 
peasants  did;  many  of  them  were  as  fanatical  as 
Luther,  and  they  were  as  little  disposed  to  mercy 
as  Luther  charged  the  nobles  to  be  to  them.  But 
the  question  is,  were  they  not  right  in  their  claims 
at  the  outset  ? 

How  mean  an  idea  of  the  significance  of  this  whole 
matter  many  have !  D'Aubigne  says  that  the  people 
were  not  ripe  for  the  enjoyment  of  political  reform, 
that  many  unregenerate  souls  were  not  prepared  for 
liberty.^  The  cant  of  it !  Fortunately  for  social  or- 
der, he  says,  the  gospel  preserved  Luther ;  for  what 
would  have  happened  had  he  carried  his  extensive 
influence  into  the  camp  of  the  peasants  ?  One  can 
conjecture  what  would  have  happened ;  namely,  the 
victory  of  the  peasants,  assisted  by  the  towns  and 
cities,  which  were  almost  equally  hostile  to  the  no- 
1  History  of  the  Reformation,  ill.  181. 


264  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

bles,  and  perhaps  a  peaceable  victory,  the  horrors  of 
massacre  averted,  and  no  two  hundred  added  years 
(as  was  actually  the  case)  of  miserable  serfdom  for 
the  peasantry  and  of  pride  and  power  for  the  lords. 
Froude  can  only  speak  of  the  Peasants'  War  as  the 
"first  scandal"  to  the  Eeformation ; ^  in  truth,  had  the 
Reformation  possessed  the  moral  fibre  which  we  de- 
mand of  a  religion  to-day,  it  would  have  been  its  first 
golden  opportunity.  A  biographer  of  Luther  speaks 
in  this  connection  of  the  "  dark  clouds  "  that  threat- 
ened a  new  danger  to  the  cause  of  the  Reformation :  ^ 
what  a  cause,  I  am  tempted  to  say,  that  did  not  find  a 
part  of  its  very  mission  in  meeting  the  danger !  Apol- 
ogists who  look  at  the  question  with  the  sympathies 
of  to-day  can  only  say  it  was  a  religious  reformation 
that  Luther  had  supremely  at  heart.  But  what  is 
religion  ?  Must  not  our  very  concern  for  truth  and 
justice  lead  us  to  disown  religion  as  thus  understood  ? 
The  only  religion  a  free  man  could  care  anything 
about  would  involve  taking  up  the  cause  which  Lu- 
ther practically  deserted,  and  striving  to  usher  in  an 
era  of  social  righteousness  on  the  earth,  —  doing  so, 
that  is,  with  the  feeling  that  we  are  bound  to  do  so, 
that  the  world  and  the  invisible  necessity  of  things 
call  us  to  the  work. 

Who  are  preparing  the  way  for  such  a  religion, 
as  much  needed  now  as  ever  it  was  in  the  days  of 
feudal  and  ecclesiastical  oppression  ?  If  you  doubt 
it,  listen  to  the  bitter  cry  of  the  outcast  poor  in 
Protestant  London ;  listen  to  the  cry  of  the  poor  in 
all  our  Protestant  cities ;  listen  to  the  cry  of  the  poor 

1  Contemporary  Review,  August,  1883. 

*^  Dr.  William  Rein's  Life  of  Luther,  p.  124. 


SUCCESS  AND  FAILURE  OF  PROTESTANTISM.    265 

in  Chicago.  Not  Protestants  as  such,  not  Christians 
as  such,  not  ministers  and  churches  as  such  are  pre- 
paring the  way  for  such  a  religion,  —  but  they  who 
anywhere  or  under  any  name  utter  or  listen  to  a  call 
of  justice.  Now  and  then  a  man  dares  lift  up  his 
voice  against  unprincipled  wealth  and  power;  now 
and  then  a  man  utters  his  belief  that  unselfishness 
may  be  lived  and  not  only  dreamed  of;  now  and 
then  a  demand  is  heard  that  public  ends  be  put  above 
private  ends,  in  politics,  business,  everywhere  j  now 
and  then  the  community  is  appealed  to,  to  regard  no 
slightest  interest  of  its  humblest  member  as  outside 
the  realm  of  its  rightful  concern.  Heard  now  and 
then  are  these  voices,  —  heard  on  the  street,  heard  in 
the  secular  newspaper,  heard  when  companies  of  re- 
formers come  together ;  and  though  they  say  not  one 
word  of  religion,  they  are  the  voices  in  our  night 
that  tell  of  the  coming  day ;  they  are  the  witnesses 
to  an  unbelieving  age  of  an  ideal  truth  and  an  ideal 
authority;  and  that  wherein  Luther  and  Protestant- 
ism and  Christianity  have  failed,  shall  be  their  success 
and  their  triumph. 


XIV. 

WHY  UNITARIANISM  FAILS  TO  SATISFY.i 

UNITAEIANS  are  not  dogmatists  ;  they  are  per- 
haps as  a  class  exceptionally  humane  and 
public-spirited,  given  to  good  works  as  freely  with- 
out as  within  ecclesiastical  lines ;  they  have  little 
other-worldliness,  and  religion  is  perhaps  with  them 
nearer  to  being  a  sentiment  to  cover  and  refine  the 
daily  life  than  with  any  other  body  of  Christians. 
Why  then  do  they  not  satisfy  ? 

In  the  first  place,  they  ask  too  much  in  the  way  of 
speculative  beliefs.  They  have  taken  a  step,  indeed, 
in  the  right  direction.  Other  churches  will  not  allow 
the  doubt  that  the  Bible  is  the  word  of  God,  or  that 
Jesus  is  Divine.  Unitarianism  does  not  regard  these 
and  many  other  doctrines  as  essential.  It  holds  only 
to  the  simplest  postulates  of  Christian  faith  ;  namely, 
that  men  have  a  Father  in  heaven,  that  they  will  live 
again  after  they  die,  and  that  Jesus  meantime  is  our 
Guide  and  Master.  But  the  time  has  come  when  even 
these  postulates  are  under  a  shadow  for  some  good 
and  earnest  men.  Not  any  moral  unfaithfulness,  not 
any  craving  for  novelties,  but  simply  reflection,  seri- 
ous reflection,  has  led  not  a  few  to  regard  a  personal 
Deity  and  individual  immortality  as  problems  rather 
than  matters  of  faith,  and  to  look  on  Jesus  as  too  far 

1  I  beg  not  to  be  understood  in  this  lecture  as  instituting  any 
comparison  between  Unitarianism  and  the  Ethical  Movement.  I 
speak  altogether  from  an  ideal  standpoint.  Whether  the  Ethical 
Movement  itself  shall  be  true  to  its  ideal  inspirations  remains  to 
be  seen. 


WHY  UNITARIANISM  FAILS  TO  SATISFY.     267 

removed  from  us,  in  his  thought  of  the  world  and  his 
hope  for  humanity,  to  be  our  guide  and  master.  This 
attitude  of  mind  is  growing;  and  yet  before  it  was 
distinctly  taken,  before  there  was  any  break  with  his- 
toric Christianity,  and  while  there  was  only  a  vague 
unwillingness  to  call  Jesus  by  the  title  "  Lord  "  and 
^•'  Master,''  it  was  frowned  upon,  if  not  repudiated,  by 
the  Unitarians  in  their  National  Conference.  The 
result  was  that  those  who  manifested  this  unwilling- 
ness felt  obliged  to  leave  the  Unitarian  fellowship. 
The  Free  Eeligious  Association  which  they  formed 
aimed  at  a  fellowship  limited  by  no  confession.  Chris- 
tian or  other,  —  a  fellowship  in  the  spirit.  Since  the 
time  of  that  Conference,  the  professions  which  Uni- 
tarians sometimes  make  of  allowing  complete  liberty 
of  thought,  and  of  ranking  the  deed  above  the  creed, 
have  an  air  of  inconsequence.  An  individual  Unita- 
rian may,  of  course,  speak  in  this  way ;  but  Unitarian- 
ism,  so  far  as  that  word  has  any  propriety,  has  spoken 
differently.  The  Conference  I  have  referred  to  had 
the  alternative  distinctly  before  it,  formally  to  avow 
these  broader  principles  or  to  confess  "the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ ; "  and  it  chose  the  latter,  "  voting,"  as 
Mr.  E.  E.  Abbot  has  tersely  said,  "  against  freedom  in 
the  name  of  its  own  Lord."  ^  Unitarianism  thereby 
ranged  itself  among  the  Christian  denominations,  — 
the  freest  indeed  of  them  all,  and  allowing  many  vari- 
eties of  belief,  but  all  within  the  fundamental  Chris- 
tian limitations,  —  and  closed  the  door  which  was 
opening  out  on  the  religion  of  the  future.     For  such 

^  See  a  most  instructive  pamphlet,  **  The  Battle  of  Syracuse : 
Two  Essays  by  Rev.  J.  F.  Clarke,  D.D.,  and  F.  E.  Abbot," 
Boston,  1876. 


268  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

a  forward-looking  thought  had  been  the  inspiration 
of  many  Unitarians.  Channing  prophesied  a  new 
order  of  things,  though  he  lamented  toward  the  end 
of  his  life  that  what  he  called  a  "Unitarian  Ortho- 
doxy"^ was  taking  the  place  of  the  old  spirit  of 
progress.  An  Abbot,  a  Frothingham,  a  Potter  joined 
in  such  a  high  hope  when  they  responded  to  the  call 
for  that  Conference  of  which  I  have  spoken ;  they  did 
not  believe  there  would  be  a  break,  but  an  alliance 
with  the  free  spirit  of  the  time,  and  that  the  future 
would  be  a  natural  growth  from  the  past.  Sad  men 
they  were  at  the  result;  Mr.  Abbot  writes  that  he 
never  went  to  rest  with  a  sadder  heart  than  after  one 
of  those  memorable  days  of  fruitless  struggle.  But 
in  truth  we  may  be  sadder  for  Unitarianism  than  for 
him  and  his  companions,  since  it  thereby  cut  itself  off 
from  one  of  the  most  magnificent  careers  that  ever 
opened  out  to  a  religious  body,  while  he  and  those 

1  Life  (one  vol.  ed.),  p.  435.  Recent  Unitarian  Orthodoxy  is 
perhaps  fairly  represented  in  the  following  from  the  Unitarian 
Review  (July,  1880,  p.  83)  :  "  There  are  Unitarians  who  believe 
in  God,  and  honor  Jesus,  and  hope  for  the  life  everlasting,  and  to 
whom  this  faith  is  the  substance  of  their  religious  life,  its  procla- 
mation their  main  work,  its  fellowship  their  main  joy.  The  work 
they  seek  to  do  for  humanity  finds  in  this  faith  its  chief  sanc- 
tion and  inspiration;  and  while  they  rejoice  in  all  work  done  for 
righteousness  and  humanity  on  whatever  basis,  and  desire  not  to 
be  found  backward  in  any  fellowship  of  philanthropy,  they  will  not 
compromise  in  their  religious  fellowships  the  very  basis  of  all  religious 
union,  nor  invite  to  the  place  of  instruction  in  their  churches  those 
who  contradict  and  contemn  the  main  agencies  of  religious  cul- 
ture and  the  fundamental  postulates  of  Christian  truth."  (The 
italics  are  ours.)  The  "  basis  of  religious  union  "  is  still  found  in 
belief  in  God,  Jesus,  and  immortality.  I  need  not  point  out  how 
far  removed  this  is  from  a  pure  religion  of  righteousness. 


WHY  UNITAKIANISM  FAILS  TO   SATISFY.     269 

with  him  have  only  to  wait  for  the  future  to  do  them 
adequate  honor.  XJnitarianism,  as  a  body,  has  made 
no  progress  worth  mentioning  since  that  day.^ 

But  there  is  another  and  deeper  reason  for  dissatis- 
faction with  Unitarianism.  Complete  freedom  for 
the  mind  is  good,  and  the  modern  world  will  have  it ; 
but  there  is  something  better,  —  a  complete  morality. 
I  have  said  Unitarianism  demands  too  much  of  us  on 
the  speculative  side ;  I  will  add,  it  demands  too  little 
on  the  practical  side.  Unitarians  manifest  no  great 
discontent  with  the  world  about  them  ;  they  inaugu- 
rate charities,  but  they  do  not  go  very  deep  with 
them,  and  their  thought  hardly  seems  to  go  beyond 
charity.  Their  conception  of  duty  is  pure,  good  as 
far  as  it  goes,  but  commonplace  ;  any  great  ranges 
of  duty,  any  mighty  responsibility  such  as  would 
put  enthusiasm  into  the  souls  of  those  who  assume 
it,  they  do  not  seem  to  be  aware  of.     They  responded 

1  It  should  be  stated,  however,  that  the  Free  Religious  spirit 
has  infected  some  of  the  Unitarian  churches  in  the  West,  and  that 
under  its  influence  the  Western  Unitarian  Conference  has  recently 
taken  a  remarkable  step  forward.  The  last  remnant  of  a  theo- 
logical creed  was  dropped  from  its  platform  in  1886,  and  it  now 
boldly  welcomes  to  its  fellowship  all  who  care  for  the  cause  of 
truth,  righteousness,  and  love  in  the  world.  The  churches  belong- 
ing to  the  Western  Conference  —  for  those  wishing  to  continue  the 
historic  attitude  of  Unitarianism  have  formed  a  separate  associa- 
tion—have thereby  placed  themselves  in  the  very  vanguard  of 
progress.  Why,  however,  one  can  hardly  help  asking,  if  the  his- 
torical meaning  of  Unitarianism  is  abandoned,  is  the  Unitarian 
name  retained?  Why  is  not  union  sought  with  those  who  have 
been  advocating  and  seeking  to  maintain  an  ethical  basis  of  fel- 
lowship for  some  time  past?  It  is  surely  to  be  hoped  that  in  the 
near  future  all  who  believe  in  a  religion  of  goodness,  whatever 
their  historical  ancestry,  may  join  hands  in  one  fellowship. 


270  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

but  mildly  to  Dr.  Channing's  great-hearted  plans  for 
the  elevation  of  the  poor  in  Boston,^  giving  them  but 
slight  support,  and  manifesting  little  of  his  kindling 
emotion  at  the  thought  of  great  improvements  in 
human  society.  Too  often  has  their  thought  been  one 
which,  if  it  ever  consoled,  now  benumbs  the  world ; 
namely,  that  the  varying  lot  of  men  is  ordered  by 
Divine  Providence,  that  the  social  order  which  exists 
with  its  classes  and  distinctions  has  a  divine  sanction. 
Let  me  make  plain  what  I  mean,  by  quoting  the 
actual  language  of  one  who  became  a  leader,  perhaps 
the  leader,  of  Unitarian  opinion  in  later  years  :  — 

"The  inequalities  —  wealth  and  poverty,  knowledge  and 
ignorance  —  of  our  social  condition  must  be  felt  to  be  the 
allotment  of  Providence,  a  wise  provision  for  the  greatest 
happiness  of  all,  before  the  poor  can  be  regarded  with  the 
tenderness  and  respect  they  deserve.  .  .  .  The  Saviour  has 
told  us,  '  The  poor  ye  have  always  with  you ; '  and  the  Chris- 
tian would  not  have  it  otherwise.  He  learns  too  many 
lessons  of  resignation  and  faith  and  hope  from  the  poor ;  he 
enjoys  too  much  satisfaction  in  ministering  to  their  necessi- 
ties; he  receives  too  many  admonitions  to  his  pride  and 
self-indulgence;  he  is  made  to  feel  his  own  privileges  too 
gratefully,  —  to  wish  that  poverty  were  no  longer  known  on 
the  earth."  2 

How  such  a  view  as  this  strikes  at  the  root  of 
all  deep  reform  !  How  it  lulls  to  rest,  —  I  do  not 
mean  to  inactivity,  but  to  a  feeling  that  with  a 
little  kindness  and  charity  on  our  part  all  things 
are  well !     How  slight  a  sense  does   it  betray  of  a 

1  Works  (one  vol.  ed.)  p.  98. 

2  Sermon  before  the  Boston  Young  Men's  Benevolent  Society, 
by  Rev.  H.  W.  Bellows,  Dec  9,  1838. 


WHY  UNITARIANISM  FAILS  TO  SATISFY.     271 

great  creative  responsibility  and  task  intrusted  to  hu- 
man society !  Do  we  wonder  that  Dr.  Channing  tells 
us  that  no  sect  took  less  interest  than  the  Unitarian 
in  the  slavery  question,  or  was  more  inclined  to  con- 
servatism ?  ^  "  Even  in  his  own  parish/'  says  a  com- 
petent witness,  "  his  message  was  unheard  save  by 
a  few.  When  he  asked  that  the  doors  of  his  church 
might  be  open  for  a  eulogy  to  be  pronounced  upon 
his  beloved  friend  Dr.  Follen,  a  warm-hearted  Aboli- 
tionist, by  another  dear  friend  Rev.  S.  J.  May,  they 
were  rudely  shut  in  his  face.^'^  ^^  wonder  that, 
according  to  his  biographer,  such  an  occurrence  led 
him  to  question  the  usefulness  of  his  whole  ministry, 
and  to  ask  to  what  end  had  he  poured  out  his  soul  all 
those  years,  if  this  was  the  answering  conduct  on  the 
part  of  his  people.  John  Quincy  Adams  even  says 
that  Channing  was  "  deserted  by  his  followers,"  in  the 
later  years  of  his  life,  and  was  actually  driven  from 
his   active  pastorate  on  account   of  his  Antislavery 

1  Memoirs,  vol.  ii.  p.  394.  The  passage  (from  a  letter  to  J. 
Blanco  White)  is  not  given  in  the  one-volume  edition  published 
by  the  American  Unitarian  Association.  It  is  perhaps  worth  quot- 
ing entire  :  "  I  wish  I  could  look  to  Unitarianism  with  more  hope. 
But  this  system  was,  at  its  recent  revival,  a  protest  of  the  un- 
derstanding against  absurd  dogmas,  rather  than  the  work  of  deep 
religious  principle,  and  was  early  paralyzed  by  the  mixture  of 
a  materialistic  philosophy,  and  fell  too  much  into  the  hands  of 
scholars  and  political  reformers ;  and  the  consequence  is  a  lack 
of  vitality  and  force,  which  gives  us  little  hope  of  its  accomplish- 
ing much  under  its  present  auspices  or  in  its  present  form.  When 
I  tell  you  that  no  sect  in  this  country  has  taken  less  interest  in 
the  slavery  question,  or  is  more  inclined  to  conservatism  than  our 
^ody,  you  will  judge  what  may  be  expected  of  it." 

2  Oliver  Johnson  in  Channing  Centennial  Volume,  p.  61.  Cf. 
Channing's  Life  (one  vol.  ed.),  p.  671. 


272  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

views.  1  I  do  not  adduce  these  things  in  any  spirit 
of  idle  criticism  or  hostility,  but  simply  as  showing 
that  to  whatever  degree  of  perfection  Unitarians  may 
have  carried  the  conventional  Christian  virtues,  —  and 
I  believe  they  have  carried  them  to  a  high  degree,  — 
they  have  had  no  deep  moral  convictions,  and  have 
been  without  a  deep  moral  life. 

In  truth,  this  might  be  said  of  the  churches  in 
general  during  the  last  hundred  years.  The  highest 
moral  ideas  have  been  conceived,  the  largest  move- 
ments of  moral  life  have  gone  on,  outside  of  them. 
And  the  fact  is  not  without  connection  with  the  fun- 
damental Christian  view  of  things.  In  the  estimation 
of  the  founders  of  Christianity  a  judgment  was  to 
be  accomplished  and  general  justice  done  by  another 
Power  than  man  ;  human  beings  were  to  love  one  an- 
other, to  be  kind  and  pitiful,  and  yet  justice  and  the 
reorganization  of  society -were  too  great,  too  difficult 
tasks  to  be  assumed  by  human  hands.  In  its  large 
general  features  the  world  was  accepted  as  it  is,  and 
a  perfect,  an  ideal  order  of  things  was  thought  to  be 
held  in  reserve  for  us.  The  noblest  exercises  of  Chris- 
tian piety  have  been  in  longing,  praying,  preparing 
oneself  for  that  future  kingdom.  The  present  age  is 
waking  up  to  another  thought.  It  is  not  inclined  to 
accept  the  order  of  human  life  as  it  is,  but  to  try  it 
and  test  it  by  a  thought  of  what  it  ought  to  be  ;  to 
see  whether  it  meets  the  wants,  the  rights  of  human 
beings  and  of  all  human  beings.  It  is  mightily  in- 
clined to  believe,  too,  that  the  satisfaction  of  these 
wants  and  the  doing  justice  to  those  rights  need  not 

1  See  Adams's  published  Diaries,  and  the  comment  thereon  in 
the  Unitarian  Review,  August,  1881,  p.  151. 


WHY   UNITARIANISM  FAILS  TO   SATISFY.     273 

be  delayed  to  a  future  world,  but  may  be  undertaken 
here,  and  that  by  no  other  power  than  ourselves. 
This  thought  was  at  the  basis  of  the  French  Ee vo- 
lution ;  it  lies  at  the  heart  of  all  the  social  unrest 
of  our  time.  I  believe,  indeed,  that  it  makes  a  seed- 
thought  for  a  new  religion :  already  we  hear  more 
idealism,  higher  ethics,  yes,  more  faith  from  the  social 
reformers  of  our  time  than  from  almost  any  other 
class  of  men.  The  modern  world  is  tired  of  hearing  of 
the  "  kingdom  of  heaven ; ''  and  if  one  insists  on  put- 
ting any  good  thought  he  has  under  that  old-time  form, 
it  passes  him  by.  What  it  wants  is  a  plan  of  justice ; 
what  it  wants  is  a  searching  and  trying  of  all  our  in- 
stitutions by  that  ideal  standard ;  what  it  wants  is  a 
company  of  men  who  will  make  that  plan  an  object  of 
religion,  and  vow  loyalty  to  it  for  life  and  death. 

I  must  say  I  see  little  of  this  spirit  among  Unita- 
rians :  there  is  much  laudable  effort  to  make  things 
a  little  better,  but  no  surrender  to  principle,  no  incli- 
nation to  take  life  in  hand  and  count  it  well  spent 
and  lost  in  devotion  to  an  idea.  I  cannot  discover 
that  they  have  in  mind  any  world-transforming  princi- 
ple or  grand  idea.  Goodness,  righteousness,  brother- 
hood are  often  enough  on  their  lips,  —  I  cannot  see 
that  they  mean  much  by  them.  For  morality  surely 
is  not  simply  what  is  left  of  the  old  religions,  after 
their  dogmas  are  given  up.  To  make  morality  the 
basis  of  a  religious  movement  does  not  mean  that  the 
souls  of  men  shall  be  fed  with  a  few  kind  feelings 
or  good  habits,  adding  perhaps,  for  the  sake  of  nov- 
elty, a  philanthropy  or  two.  No  !  morality  is  nothing 
save  as  it  is  vastly  more  than  this ;  and  philanthropies 
are  nothing  save  as  they  are  incidents  of  a  thought 

18 


274  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

that  takes  not  this  or  that  special  good,  but  all  good 
in  its  grasp.  What  we  want  is  a  sight  of  principles ; 
to  aim  not  at  the  better,  but  at  the  best ;  to  fear  not 
to  make  the  rule  of  a  perfect  life  the  rule  of  every 
day ;  to  bring  the  glory  and  sanctity  of  heaven  here 
on  the  earth.  How  do  our  lives  stand  with  the  moral 
law;  how  will  our  treatment  of  one  another  in  our 
business,  our  homes,  bear  the  reflection  of  the  white 
searching  light  of  truth  and  justice?  Do  we  ever 
take  advantage  of  the  weakness  or  the  ignorance  of 
another  ?  Do  we  ever  gain  anything  by  another's 
losing  ?  Do  we  ever  profit  by  lies,  by  false  represen- 
tations ?  Do  we  ever  excuse  ourselves  by  saying  they 
are  necessary  ?  Has  shame  gone  out  of  us  when  we 
have  done  a  wrong  thing,  an  impure  thing  ?  Do  we 
divert  or  amuse  ourselves,  when  we  might  better  be 
doing  penance  ?  Ah,  think  not  that  in  acknowledg- 
ing morality  you  are  taking  up  with  an  easy  master ! 
It  indeed  nowise  limits  or  offends  our  reason,  but  it 
imposes  no  light  or  transient  obligations  on  the  will 
and  life.  It  has  a  grave  face  ;  its  joys  are  severe ;  ^ 
it  makes  no  promises,  and  will  not  be  served  for  ease, 
pleasure,  or  any  personal  good.  It  may  command  the 
renunciation  of  all  these ;  it  may  once  more  speak  to 
the  world  as  it  did  through  Jesus,  and  say  that  neither 
father  nor  mother  nor  wife  nor  child,  nor  any  station 
or  business  or  prosperity  in  life,  shall  be  so  dear  as 
itself.  I  know  that  it  means  order,  that  it  involves 
the  general  good,  the  universal  happiness ;  but  it  does 
not  mean  the  order  of  any  particular  stage  of  society, 
nor  a  good  or  goods  which  one  class  of  men  share  and 
another  do  not,  nor  my  happiness  nor  your  happiness 
1  "  Res  severa  est  verum  gaudiura." 


WHY  UNITARIANISM  FAILS  TO  SATISFY.     275 

save  in  so  far  as  they  are  a  part  of  the  universal  hap- 
piness. Morality  may  destroy  as  well  as  build;  it 
may  uproot  as  well  as  plant ;  it  may  say  with  Chan- 
ning  of  a  social  order  which  blesses  a  few  and  rests 
on  the  depression  of  the  many,  Let  it  perish !  ^  Mo- 
rality means  the  good  of  all ;  moral  questions  are 
largely  social  questions ;  and  there  has  scarcely  been 
a  man,  to  my  knowledge,  among  Unitarians  who  has 
addressed  himself  in  the  spirit  of  Channing  to  the 
social  questions,  or  even  repeated  his  words  :  nay, 
they  sometimes  even  have  said  that  their  great  leader 
was  over-sensitive,  and  that  he  had  an  almost  morbid 
vision  of  moral  evil.^ 

When  I  say  Unitarianism  demands  too  little  of  us 
on  the  practical  side,  I  do  not  mean  that  it  does  not 
undertake  a  few  more  charities,  nor  that  it  is  not 
benevolent,  humane,  philanthropic,  as  those  words  go, 
but  that  it  does  not  call  on  us  to  create  a  new  heaven 
and  a  new  earth ;  that  it  does  not  appeal  to  the  infi- 
nite side  of  human  nature ;  that  its  enthusiasm  only 
matches  with  the  tasks  it  proposes,  —  for  example, 
putting  churches  in  University  towns,  endowing  theo- 
logical schools,  building  denominational  houses  and 
club-rooms,  and  supporting  old  churches  whose  natu- 
ral lives  seem  to  be  already  spent. 

A  great  work  comes  only  out  of  a  great  thought,  and 
I  do  not  discover  any  such  great  thought  in  Unitari- 
anism. Think  of  the  growth  of  early  Christianity, 
of  those  first  three  centuries  when  the  Church  moved, 

1  Works  (one  vol.  ed.),  p.  32. 

2  Cf .  Prof.  J.  H.  Allen's  "  Our  Liberal  Movement  in  Theology  " 
(p.  61),  —  a  book,  it  should  be  added,  giving  a  remarkably  candid 
review  of  the  history  of  Unitarianism. 


276  ETHICAL  KELIGION. 

as  has  been  said,^  with  the  pace  of  a  goddess,  conquer- 
ing and  to  conquer !  It  was  not  force  that  was  the 
secret  of  her  victory ;  it  was  not  schools,  it  was  not 
churches,  nor  bishops,  nor  bibles  ;  it  was  not  even 
the  sweet  tale  of  the  life,  nor  the  tragic  story  of  the 
death,  of  the  man  of  Nazareth ;  no,  nor  the  innocent 
myth  of  his  triumphant  resurrection  and  ascension : 
it  was  something  back  of  and  above  all  this,  —  it  was 
the  grand  thought  of  the  "  kingdom  of  God."  In  the 
larger  proportions  of  that  idea  Jesus  got  his  sanctity, 
from  it  churches  derived  their  strength,  in  it  a  long- 
ing world  found  satisfaction  and  redemption.  That 
idea  was  nothing  but  a  dream  of  the  perfect :  worship 
went  thither,  love  and  tears  mingled  at  the  thought  of 
such  a  consummation,  death  itself  was  holy  when  be- 
yond it  men  saw  the  eternal  splendors.  Do  you  won- 
der when  I  say  that  no  less  great  a  thought  than  this 
can  produce  another  religion,  —  something  encompass- 
ing life  and  sanctifying  death ;  something  making  us 
despise  the  world  as  we  see  it  and  long  for  a  better  ; 
something  awakening  worship  again,  stirring  love  and 
tears  and  song  and  joy  ?  Yet  I  believe  it.  Man  can- 
not thrive  on  petty  plans.  He  must  have  something 
before  him  as  great  as  his  grandest  thought  of  the  pos- 
sible ;  nothing  but  the  perfect,  nothing  but  a  perfect 
society,  an  ideal  fellowship,  a  "City  of  the  Light," 
can  satisfy  him.  It  is  not  necessary  that  he  hope  act- 
ually to  witness  the  final  triumph,  —  it  is  enough,  I  be- 
lieve, that  he  can  think  of  it ;  that  something  of  the 
glory  of  it  may  descend  upon  him  as  he  toils  for  it ; 
that  the  labors  of  his  hands  have  an  eternal  issue 
there.  "  Though  we  die,"  said  a  recently  condemned 
1  John  Henry  Newman. 


WHY  UNITARIANISM  FAILS  TO  SATISFY.     277 

Nihilist,  "  we  have  bright  hopes."  He  did  not  ask  to 
see  the  nobler  political  and  social  order  that  he  be- 
lieved was  to  come ;  it  was  enough  for  him  that  it 
would  come,  and  that  he  could  give  his  life  for  it :  nay, 
in  thought  he  could  leap  across  the  years  that  sep- 
arated him  from  it,  and  cry,  as  if  standing  even  then 
in  the  midst  of  an  emancipated  fatherland,  "Long 
live  the  Eussian  Kepublic!"  Can  we  not  so  think 
and  speak  of  the  grander  republic,  the  Commonwealth 
of  Man,  the  universal  society,  wherein  "the  perfect 
Eight  doth  reign,"  —  which  the  heart  and  conscience 
and  reason  unite  in  demanding  as  the  end  and  con- 
summation of  the  whole  course  of  human  history,  the 
outcome  of  the  toils  and  struggles  of  all  the  genera- 
tions of  men  ?  What  matters  it  if  it  is  far  on  in  the 
distant  future,  —  can  our  thought  be  prevented  from 
leaping  out  to  it  ?  And  can  we  not  even  now  take 
our  stand  in  imagination  with  it,  trying  our  actual 
lives  and  institutions  by  it,  and  finding  rest  and  con- 
tentment only  as  we  know  that  we  and  the  world  are 
going  on  toward  the  perfect  goal  ?  Not  from  Unita- 
rianism,  not  from  Christianity,  has  come  the  song 
that  best  utters  and  almost  chants  this  thought.  It 
is  from  Felix  Adler,  upon  whom,  I  sometimes  think, 
more  than  upon  any  other  man  of  our  day,  the  mantle 
and  prophetic  spirit  of  Channing  have  fallen,  and  whose 
words,  I  almost  believe,  are  those  which  Jesus  him- 
self would  utter,  should  he  come  and  put  his  solemn 
thought  and  passion  into  the  language  of  to-day :  — 

**  Have  you  heard  the  Golden  City- 
Mentioned  in  the  legends  old  1 
Everlasting  light  shines  o'er  it, 
Wondrous  tales  of  it  are  told. 


278  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

Only  righteous  men  and  women 
Dwell  within  its  gleaming  wall; 

Wrong  is  banished  from  its  borders, 
Justice  reigns  supreme  o'er  all. 

Do  you  ask,  Where  is  that  City, 

Where  the  perfect  Right  doth  reign  ? 

I  must  answer,  I  must  tell  you, 
That  you  seek  its  site  in  vain. 

You  may  roam  o'er  hill  and  valley. 
You  may  pass  o'er  land  and  sea, 

You  may  search  the  wide  earth  over,  — 
'T  is  a  City  yet  to  be  ! 

We  are  builders  of  that  City,  — 
All  our  joys  and  all  our  groans 

Help  to  rear  its  shining  ramparts  ; 
All  our  lives  are  building- stones. 


What  that  plan  may  be  we  know  not. 

How  the  seat  of  Justice  high. 
How  the  City  of  our  vision 

Will  appear  to  mortal  eye,  — 

That  no  mortal  eye  can  picture, 
That  no  mortal  tongue  can  tell. 

We  can  barely  dream  the  glories 
Of  the  Future's  citadel. 

But  for  it  we  still  must  labor. 
For  its  sake  bear  pain  and  grief, 

In  it  find  the  end  of  living 
And  the  anchor  of  belief. 

But  a  few  brief  years  we  labor. 
Soon  our  earthly  day  is  o'er  ; 

Other  builders  take  our  places, 
And  *'  our  place  knows  us  no  more." 


WHY  UNITAKIANISM  FAILS  TO  SATISFY.     279 

Bnt  the  work  that  we  have  builded, 
Oft  with  bleeding  hands  and  tears, 

And  in  error  and  in  anguish, 
Will  not  perish  with  our  years. 

It  will  be  at  last  made  perfect 

In  the  universal  plan  ; 
It  will  help  to  crown  the  labors 

Of  the  toiling  hosts  of  man. 

It  will  last  and  shine  transfigured 

In  the  final  reign  of  Right ; 
It  will  merge  into  the  splendors 

Of  the  City  of  the  Light ! " 

Does  not  this  cover  life  ;  does  it  not  sanctify  death ; 
does  it  not  take  hold  of  the  deepest  needs,  the  highest 
longings  of  our  nature ;  are  we  not  touched  with  un- 
speakable awe  to  know  that  our  humblest  work,  even 
though  done  "  in  error,  in  anguish/'  and  "  with  bleed- 
ing hands  and  tears/'  cannot  fail  of  its  end,  but  helps 
on  to  the  ultimate  consummation  ?  I  am  Reminded  of 
George  Eliot's  words,  — 

"  Even  our  failures  are  a  prophepy,  ^^^/^ 

Even  our  yearnings  and  our/oitter  tears 
After  that  fair  and  true  ^^  cannot  grasp,  — 
As  patriots  who  seem  pS  die  in  vain 
Make  liberty  more  sacred  by  their  pangs."  ^ 

Not  a  patriot,  not  a  martyr,  not  an  ideal  reformer,  has 
ever  said  or  can  ever  say  his  word  or  do  his  deed  in 
vain.  They  only  live  in  vain  who  compromise  with 
their  ideal  convictions,  who  believe  in  no  grand  goal 
for  humanity,  who  would  rather  live  well,  comfortably 
housed  and  honored  in  this  present  order  of  things, 
than  dare  condemn  it  and  help  to  create  a  better. 
1  A  Minor  Prophet. 


280  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

I  have  said  Unitarianism  is  unsatisfactory  on  its 
practical  side,  because  it  lacks  a  great  thought ;  and 
this  thought  is  to  my  mind,  —  I  utter  it  at  the  risk 
of  seeming  extravagant,  —  that  the  perfect  order  of 
things,  which  Omnipotence  was  to  produce  for  us  in 
another  world,  we  are  ourselves  to  create  here.  I 
believe  there  is  a  kind  of  omnipotence  in  human  na- 
ture :  I  do  not  mean,  of  course,  as  men  ordinarily  are, 
eating,  drinking,  wrapped  up  in  pleasure,  business, 
and  personal  interests,  but  as  they  might  be,  under 
the  influence  of  ideas.  I  might  more  properly  say,  I 
believe  in  the  omnipotence  of  ideas,  and  of  men  in  so 
far  as  they  are  possessed  with  them,  —  and  men  only 
need  to  open  their  hearts  to  be  so  possessed.  The 
true  atheist  is  he  who  does  not  believe  that  an  ideal 
justice  and  right  can  conquer  in  the  world,  that  men 
—  all  men  —  and  universal  human  society  and  gov- 
ernment cannot  will  and  do  the  good,  the  perfect  good. 
There  is  no  need  of  the  miracle-working,  heaven-creat- 
ing God  of  the  old  theology ;  nay,  he  is  our  enemy  to 
the  extent  that  men  are  led  to  give  to  him  the  tasks 
and  trust  him  for  the  results  which  they  should  ac- 
complish themselves.  There  is  a  miracle-working,  a 
heaven-creating  power  in  ourselves.  So  long  as  we 
pray,  this  divinity  is  dishonored.  Until  he  awakes, 
there  is  no  salvation. 

Unitarianism  does  not  see  this,  and  does  not  because 
of  what  I  must  call  —  and  this  is  my  third  point  —  its 
general  lack  of  seriousness  in  treating  of  the  issues 
of  the  day.  Nowhere  is  this  better  shown  than  in 
its  attitude  toward  this  subject  of  prayer.  Prayer  for 
temporal  things,  for  rain  or  fair  weather,  for  food  or 
shelter,  Unitarians  do  not  make,  except  by  a  slip  of  the 


WHY  UNITARIANISM  FAILS  TO   SATISFY.     281 

tongue  ;  but  they  pray  for  spiritual  blessings,  for  the 
kingdom  of  God.  But  are  not  these  just  the  things 
that  need  praying  for  the  least,  that  are  most  within 
our  own  power  ?  Eain  or  fair  weather  are  very  evi- 
dently in  some  other  control  than  our  own ;  but 
purity,  charity,  truth,  how  can  these  ever  come  to  us 
save  by  our  willing  to  have  them  ?  A  perfect  order 
of  society,  how  can  it  ever  dawn  on  the  earth  save  as 
man  sets  his  heart  upon  it  and  determines  that  it 
shall  be  ?  Certainly  these  are  the  best  things,  and 
if  prayer  would  bring  them,  they  would  be  the  most 
worth  praying  for ;  but  because  they  are  the  best, 
ay,  the  most  sacred  things,  therefore  all  the  more 
scrupulous  should  we  be  in  laying  hold  of  only  the 
true  and  effectual  means  for  getting  them.  The  dif- 
ference between  those  who  do  not  pray  and  those 
who  do,  is  not  in  any  lessened  value  the  former  set 
on  these  higher  things,  or  in  any  diminished  aspira- 
tion or  craving  for  them,  but  simply  in  the  sense  of 
the  law  of  cause  and  effect.  Kain  does  not  come  save 
as  there  are  certain  conditions  in  the  atmosphere ; 
truth,  justice,  and  the  reign  of  the  right  can  no  more 
come  save  as  there  are  certain  conditions  in  the  hu- 
man soul,  certain  widespread  dispositions  in  human 
society.  Prayer  is  a  survival  from  an  old  uncritical, 
unscientific  habit  of  mind;  it  remains  with  men  to- 
day chiefly  because  it  is  a  habit ;  it  remains  above 
all  with  Unitarians,  who  are  rationalized  in  so  many 
ways,  almost  purely  and  solely  because  it  is  a  habit. 
And  they  do  not  see  that  it  is  a  confusing  habit, 
to  abandon  which  is  not  to  give  up  a  form  or  a  few 
words  merely,  but  to  recognize  the  change  of  view 
that  has  come  over  the  world  in  respect  to  the  means 


282  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

of  accomplishing  the  highest  and  dearest  ends.  Jesus 
did  not  vaguely  aspire  for  the  kingdom  of  God ;  nor 
did  his  followers,  when,  after  he  had  gone  on  high 
as  they  imagined,  they  besought  him  to  come  again 
quickly  :  they  believed  he  would  come,  and  he  be- 
lieved that  the  faith  which  might  remove  mountains 
could  also  be  answered  by  the  establishment  of  the 
Divine  Kingdom.  How  vain  then  is  it  to  repeat  his 
or  their  language,  when  the  mighty  belief  that  was  in 
it  is  no  longer  ours !  Let  those  who  have  a  new  belief 
not  dally  with  an  old  form.  Let  us  appeal  to  men  as 
fervently  and  with  as  absolute  a  faith  as  ever  of  old 
prompted  prayer  to  God;  and  the  slumbering  divin- 
ity that  lies  down  deep  in  us  all  will  arise,  and,  loosed 
from  his  bonds,  go  forth  to  recreate  the  world. 

There  is  a  similar  lack  of  seriousness  in  the  Uni- 
tarian attitude  toward  Jesus.  As  they  pray  without 
any  deep  belief  in  prayer,  so  they  own  Jesus  as  Mas- 
ter with  scant  sense  of  that  supreme  devotion,  that 
passionate  love,  which  has  inspired  earnest  Christian 
men  and  women  the  world  over.  It  is  a  venerable 
and  beautiful  form  of  words,  "  our  Lord  and  Master," 
and  Unitarians  often  seem  to  use  it  because  they 
can^  rather  than  because  they  must.  Sometimes  their 
claim  has  been  to  represent  primitive  Christianity ; 
but  in  simple  truth  it  must  be  said  they  have  made 
little  effort  to  understand  primitive  Christianity : 
they  have  generally  looked  at  it  from  nineteenth  cen- 
tury and  not  from  first  century  eyes  ;  they  have  been 
anxious  to  see  what  interpretation  the  Gospels  would 
hear,  rather   than  what  they  really  teach.^     And  at 

1  Rev.  Dr.  James  Martineau  —  an  English  Unitarian  who  com- 
bines in  a  remarkable  manner  ideal  philosophy  with  the  historical 


WHY  UNITARIANISM  FAILS  TO   SATISFY.     283 

best,  granting  whatever  formal  resemblance  there  may 
be  in  Unitarianism  to  primitive  Christianity,  it  is  as 
much  really  like  it  as  the  framework  of  a  building 
that  is  falling  to  pieces  is  like  a  similar  framework 
around  which  a  noble  structure  is  going  up.  The 
framework  in  both  cases  may  be  the  same ;  but  in  the 
case  of  early  Christianity  the  house  was  building,  and 
to-day  it  is  falling  in  ruins.  One  cannot,  I  venture 
to  say,  be  a  genuine,  whole-hearted  Christian  after  the 
primitive  type  without  being  caught  up  by  the  spirit 
of  the  movement,  and  becoming  something  more. 

And  even  those  Unitarians  who  do  not  own  Jesus 
as  Master  or  claim  to  represent  primitive  Christianity, 
incline  to  play  fast  and  loose  with  the  Christian  name. 
They  rarely  treat  Christianity  in  a  generous  way  as  a 
great  historical  movement,  and  only  by  an  ungracious 
minimizing  of  its  essentials  do  they  make  out  that 
they  have  a  right  to  be  called  Christians  at  all.  Some- 
times their'  Christian  faith  is  at  so  low  an  ebb,  that 
they  claim  the  Christian  name  only  because  they  are 
of  Christian  descent  or  live  under  a  Christian  civili- 
zation ;  and  if  they  actually  give  up  the  Christian 
name,  it  is  with  so  little  heartiness  that  they  bring 
no  enthusiasm  to  the  cause  of  a  new  religion. 

Yes,  in  the  conception  of  religion  itself  Unitarians 
sometimes  manifest  a  lack  of  deep  seriousness.    Is 

spirit  —  says :  "  No  one  who  has  once  become  familiar  with  the 
definite  images  and  ideas  of  the  Messianic  Christianity  in  any  of 
its  forms  can  ever  again  give  to  its  language  the  loose  and  large 
interpretation  which  alone  renders  it  available  for  the  voice  of 
living  piety.  He  knows  it  really  means  what  he  cannot  mean ; 
and  if  constrained  to  adopt  it,  he  feels  that  his  *  Kingdom  of 
heaven  suffereth  violence.'" 


284  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

it  not  something  to  give  oneself  over  to  the  right 
in  a  covenant  never  to  be  broken  ?  Is  that  an  easy 
thing,  a  light  thing  ?  Is  the  mood  in  which  one  does 
it  a  mood  that  comports  with  the  use  of  such  adjec- 
tives as  "  welcome,  delicate,  rare,  and  exquisite  "  ^  to 
describe  it  ?  Yet  there  is  a  great  deal  of  this  "deli- 
cate, rare,  and  exquisite  "  religion  among  Unitarians. 
Another  writer  says  that  "there  is  a  grace  of  sen- 
timent, a  tenderness  of  feeling,  that  is  as  beautiful 
as  it  is  rare,  which  is  more  truthfully  represented 
by  this  word  '  religion '  than  by  any  other  in  our  lan- 
guage." ^  Did  any  great  religious  movement  ever 
start  with  such  conceptions  as  these  ?  Does  not  real 
religion  try  men,  and  set  before  them  arduous  tasks  ? 
Hear  the  words  of  the  old  prophets  :  "  Wash  you  and 
make  you  clean,  and  put  away  the  evil  of  your  do- 
ings ! "  Hear  the  words  of  Jesus  :  "  Let  the  dead  bury 
their  dead,  but  go  thou  and  preach  the  Kingdom  of 
God  ! "  Hear  Luther,  hear  Channing,  and  you  will  not 
fail  to  realize  that  religion  means  higher  and  grander 
thoughts  of  duty,  stricter  rules  of  life;  and  that  it 
must  be  a  religion  out  of  which  strenuous  convictions 
are  gone,  and  wherein  only  a  few  pretty  flowers  of 
sentiment  remain,  that  can  bear  to  be  described  in 
these  "rare,  delicate,  and  exquisite"  terms.  I  said 
in  the  early  part  of  my  discourse,  that  religion  with 
Unitarians  was  a  sentiment  to  cover  and  refine  the 
daily  life  ;  but  religion  must  be  more  than  this.  A 
new  religion  must  call  for  a  new  daily  life ;  its  in- 
fluence must  be  not  to  make  us  pass  our  days  serenely 
as  our  fathers  passed  theirs,  but  to  stir  a  divine  un- 

^  Rev.  Dr.  H.  W.  Bellows,  Boston  Unitarian  Anniversary,  1881. 

2  Unity,  Nov.  16,  1881,  p.  342. 


WHY   UNITARIANISM  FAILS  TO   SATISFY.     285 

rest  for  a  higher  life.  The  religion  of  Unitarians  is 
too  near  this  world,  — it  offers  too  few  contrasts  with 
it ;  it  does  not  rap  our  souls  away  into  the  vision  of 
an  eternal  beauty  that  lies  beyond  it.  I  have  in  mind 
a  picture,  —  I  cannot  tell  whether  I  ever  saw  it,  or 
whether  it  is  made  up  in  imagination  from  hints 
that  I  have  somewhere  found  in  reading,  —  of  Saint 
Augustine  and  his  mother,  sitting  together,  with  eyes 
turned  upward  and  seeming  to  rest  on  some  distant 
transcendent  glory.  It  is  this  attitude  which  I  miss 
in  Unitarianism,  and  which  I  seem  to  find  in  the 
touching  song  of  a  glorified  humanity  which  I  have 
already  quoted.  To  look  away  from  this  present  or- 
der of  human  life  to  an  ideal  order,  to  feel  that  our 
true  life  and  home  are  there,  —  this,  whether  the  ideal 
is  conceived  as  another  species  of  reality,  only  sepa- 
rated from  us  in  space  and  time,  or  the  image  and 
form  after  which  we  are  to  shape  and  recreate  pres- 
ent reality,  as  I  hold, — this  is  indeed  the  meaning 
of  Ethics,  and  must  be  the  supreme  attitude  of  an 
Ethical  religion. 

I  am  aware  that  I  have  considered  Unitarianism  in 
its  actual  character  and  history  rather  than  in  those 
higher  inspirations  that  have  now  and  then  visited  it. 
They  were  mostly  before  Unitarianism  began  an  or- 
ganized existence.  Then  were  heard  grand  assertions 
of  the  rights  of  the  mind  as  over  against  external 
authority,  vindications  of  the  moral  and  rational  na- 
ture of  man ;  then  it  was  said  that  religion  was  not 
in  name  or  form  or  creed,  but  in  lifting  the  soul  to 
the  love  and  practice  of  goodness  :  almost  prophetic 
strains  they  were,  which  redeemed,  and  still  redeem, 


286  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

as  we  read  them,  the  dreary  Biblical  and  theological 
controversies  of  those  early  times.  And  the  only 
reason  why  Unitarianism  cannot  become  the  religion 
of  the  future,  is  that  when  it  came  to  publish  its 
word  to  the  world  it  was  not  willing  to  take  its  stand 
on  that  high  ground,  but  felt  it  must,  before  all,  keep 
its  standing  in  the  Christian  Church,  and  cling  to  its 
small  half-believed  remnant  of  the  Christian  creed. 
May  the  brave  little  company  of  ^^ Ethical"  Unita- 
rians in  the  West,i  and  other  earnest  individuals 
here  and  there,  yet  reclaim  the  larger  body  to  which 
they  belong,  and  lift  it  to  the  level  of  its  highest 
inspirations ! 

1  See  note  to  p.  269. 


XV. 

THE  BASIS  OF  THE  ETHICAL  MOVEMENT. 

THE  Ethical  movement  has  a  serious  aim.  It  is 
not  a  literary  movement ;  nor  is  it  primarily  a 
philosophical  movement.  It  does  not  aim  at  culture, 
in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word.  A  wider  knowl- 
edge of  man  and  of  the  best  products  of  the  human 
spirit,  —  that  is  very  desirable,  but  it  does  not  make 
our  central  aim.  We  want  to  touch  the  springs  of 
man's  moral  life,  to  influence  character  and  conduct. 
Our  aim  is  moral  culture ;  and  it  is  natural  that  I 
should  try  to  answer  the  question.  On  what  basis 
does  such  a  movement  rest ;  what  is  our  starting- 
point,  what  is  the  unmovable  rock  on  which  we  plant 
our  feet? 

First,  I  must  frankly  say  that  the  Ethical  movement 
does  not  find  a  sure  basis  in  the  great  religions  that 
have  come  down  to  us,  nor  even  in  the  rationalized 
forms  of  them  that  are  becoming  more  or  less  current. 
There  is  no  occasion  for  jeers  and  gibes  at  Judaism 
and  Christianity.  They  are  not  aliens,  but  in  the 
order  of  history,  —  the  ancestry  from  which  we  have 
sprung,  the  mother  of  us  all.  Taunts  are  sometimes 
directed  against  them  as  if  the  human  mind  were  not 
responsible  for  them,  as  if  they  were  imported  from 
without  or  had  descended  ready-made  from  heaven. 
But  this  is  a  shallow  view,  and  really  proceeds  from 


288  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

the  standpoint  of  tLe  religions  themselves.  The  truth 
is,  that  mankind  has  developed  its  own  religious  be- 
liefs ;  that  neither  God  nor  Devil  revealed  them ;  and 
hence  that  to  ridicule  them  in  a  wholesale  way  is  to 
ridicule  the  human  mind  itself.  None  the  less  are 
the  old  beliefs  inadequate  to  our  present  light  and 
knowledge.  Though  it  is  simply  one  stage  of  human 
culture  succeeding  another  and  lower  stage,  the  tran- 
sition is  so  great  as  to  amount  to  a  revolution.  To 
go  straight  to  the  heart  of  the  matter,  men  have  here- 
tofore conceived  of  the  Supreme  Power  of  the  world 
as  a  personal  being  like  themselves  ;  and  they  have 
had  so  slight  a  notion  of  the  order  of  Nature  and  the 
fixity  of  Nature's  laws,  that  they  have  thought  they 
might  pray  to  him  and  ask  him  to  do  for  them  what 
they  could  not  do  for  themselves.  Many  to-day,  on 
the  other  hand,  owing  partially  to  the  influence  of 
philosophical  criticism  and  partly  to  that  of  positive 
science,  are  constrained  to  regard  the  personality  of 
Deity  as  an  open  question,  and  prayer  as  a  useless 
expenditure  of  human  energy.  Personality  is  a  con- 
ception borrowed  from  our  experience  in  connection 
with  human  beings ;  it  may  be  questioned  whether  we 
have  a  right  to  apply  it  to  what  is  beyond  all  expe- 
rience, unless  it  be  by  way  of  metaphor  or  figure  of 
speech, — as  we  may  speak  of  the  unknown  mystery 
as  a  sun,  or  as  light  or  life.  Theology  is  simply  turn- 
ing poetry  into  prose.  That  unseen  Power  by  which 
we  live  is  greater  than  all  our  figures  of  speech,  out- 
shines our  most  brilliant  metaphor,  —  is  indeed  light 
unapproachable,  unthinkable.  Prayer  seems  almost 
a  belittling  of  that  solemn  mystery  in  the  bosom  of 
which  we  and  this  wide  world  rest.     Por  it  is  not, 


THE  BASIS  OF  THE  ETHICAL  MOVEMENT.     289 

let  me  distinctly  say,  in  the  name  of  materialism  or 
phenomenalism,  but  because  of  a  deeper  sense  of  that 
mystery,  that  I  abandon  prayer.  At  the  same  time 
that  we  are  less  able  to  make  dogmatic  assertions  re- 
specting the  unknown,  we  are  learning,  and  are  able 
to  assert,  more  and  more  in  the  field  of  the  known. 
A  vision  of  law  and  order  is  dawning  upon  us ;  the 
sphere  of  caprice  is  diminishing  and  vanishing  before 
our  eyes  ;  a  conception  of  the  universe  is  developing 
which  if  it  has  less  fascination  for  a  childish  mind, 
has  infinitely  more  and  is  unspeakably  grander  to  the 
thoughtful  and  mature.  Arbitrary  will,  purposes  that 
change  and  bend,  these  may  be  in  man,  but  they  are 
not  in  Nature ;  they  are  not  in  that  ultimate  and  total 
order  of  things  of  which  man  and  Nature  are  parts.. 
We  may  pray  to  our  fellow-men,  we  may  appeal  to 
one  another  to  respond  to  our  varying  wishes  and 
wants  ;  but  prayer  to  the  Unknown  God  involves  a 
double  vice,  —  first,  distrust  of  the  beneficence  of  that 
order  through  which  he  is  already  manifested,  and 
which  holds  fast  whether  we  pray  or  not ;  second,  a 
despair  of  our  ability  to  act  as  proximate  causes,  and 
to  bring  about  the  results  we  wish  ourselves. 

Such,  very  hastily  expressed,  are  the  results  to 
which  modern  thought  is  leading  some  reflecting  and 
earnest  men  at  the  present  time.  It  is  because  the 
rationalized  forms  of  the  old  religions  do  not  make 
room  for  those  who  fearlessly  and  frankly  accept  these 
results,  that  their  fellowship  is  too  narrow  for  me. 
For  with  much  of  the  work  of  Liberal  Christianity 
and  reformed  Judaism  it  is  impossible  not  to  sympa- 
thize. They  have  battled  with  and  left  behind  many 
old  and  outworn  notions  and  forms ;  they  have  tried 

19 


290  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

to  reconcile  reason  with  religion,  and  freedom  with  a 
spiritual  faith.  But  they  have  not  gone  far  enough 
with  their  rationalism.  I  find  fault  with  them,  not 
for  what  they  have  done,  but  for  what  they  now 
seem  unwilling  to  do.  Liberal  Christians,  for  exam- 
ple, no  longer  believe  in  the  three  persons  of  the  old 
theology,  but  they  seem  to  cling  with  no  less  energy 
to  the  doctrine  of  one  person.  Judaism  has  from 
the  beginning  tenaciously  held  to  this  doctrine.  Do 
we  now  and  then,  perhaps,  hear  that  this  must  not 
be  taken  literally  and  dogmatically  ;  that  it  is  only 
poetic  personification  that  is  had  in  mind;  that  the 
term  "  God,^'  as  ordinarily  used,  is  but  a  metaphor  ? 
But  how  much  seriousness  are  we  to  attribute  to 
such  explanations  when  the  old  forms,  that  have  their 
meaning  only  in  connection  with  the  old  ideas,  are 
persisted  in  ?  Is  it  child's  play  which  I  am  witness- 
ing, when  after  the  concession  that  "  God ''  may  be 
but  a  metaphor,  I  hear  a  solemn  address  to  him,  or 
a  solemn  benediction  invoked  from  him  upon  the  peo- 
ple ?  Which  word,  indeed,  of  the  preacher  or  rabbi 
shall  I  believe,  which  does  he  really  mean  ?  Or  is  it 
possible  that  religion  —  which  is,  one  would  suppose, 
the  sincere,  the  utterly  truthful  attitude  of  the  soul 
before  what  is  highest  and  best  to  it  —  is  ceasing  to 
be,  and  men  are  contenting  themselves  with  shifts 
and  compromises  and  the  use  of  words  with  double 
meanings  ?  Hear,  too,  what  is  said  and  then  done  in 
regard  to  prayer.  He  would  be  a  foolish  man  now- 
adays who  would  ignore  or  deny  the  reign  of  law 
in  the  world;  and  the  Liberal  pulpit  recognizes  and 
teaches  it.  The  bearing  of  it  upon  prayer  is  also 
shown,  and  we  are  told  that  prayer  cannot  change  or 


THE  BASIS  OF  THE  ETHICAL  MOVEMENT.     291 

suspend  the  Divine  laws,  but  only  bring  us  into  con- 
formity with  them ;  and  straightway  we  hear  not  only 
an  address  to  Deity,  but  an  appeal  that  he  will  bless 
our  community  and  our  families,  that  he  will  heal  the 
sick  and  defend  the  poor,  —  all  which  involve  a  prac- 
tical denial  of  the  view  presented  in  the  discourse. 
Meanwhile  the  community  continues  unblessed,  and 
the  sick  are  not  healed,  and  the  poor  are  defence- 
less ;  and  in  the  name  of  truth,  I  ask  would  it  not  be 
better  for  the  pulpit  to  address  its  entreaties  to  the 
men  and  women  in  the  pews,  and  say  that  to  them 
is  trusted  the  care  of  the  community  and  the  guar- 
dianship of  their  families ;  to  them  is  the  sacred  task 
committed  of  going  out  and  healing  the  sick  and  rais- 
ing up  the  unfortunate ;  to  theniy  in  their  laws  and  in 
their  business,  is  the  work  given  of  establishing  jus- 
tice for  the  poor?  Oh  for  a  wave  of  seriousness  to 
sweep  through  the  churches  ! 

Yes,  for  myself,  not  merely  the  rationalized  forms 
of  Christianity  and  Judaism,  but  religion  itself,  as  it 
is  popularly  understood,  does  not  give  an  absolutely 
sure  basis  on  which  to  stand.  Eeligion,  in  the  popu- 
lar sense,  hinges  on  faith  in  God,  Prayer,  and  Immor- 
tality. I  do  not  indeed  forget  that  there  is  a  wider 
sense  of  the  word  religion,  —  a  sense  that  would  give 
a  place  to  Buddhism,  which  at  its  inception  was  with- 
out any  of  the  beliefs  already  named,  and  would  in- 
clude any  system  which  sets  a  supreme  ideal  before 
the  human  mind  and  prescribes  a  rule  for  its  attain- 
ment; and  further,  I  do  not  conceal  my  own  faith 
that  out  of  a  fresh  sense  of  the  demands  of  morality 
upon  us,  out  of  a  new  contact  with  the  higher  ideal 
tendeiioies  of  the  world,  tbero  will  dawn  upon  us  and 


292  ETHICAL  religion! 

burn  into  us  a  new  conviction  as  to  life,  its  meaning 
and  its  issue,  a  new  sense  of  a  world-purpose  and 
a  world-goal.  But  now,  and  at  the  start,  our  word 
is  a  simple  one.  We  do  not  propound  new  views  of 
the  universe.  We  wish  rather  a  new  sense  of  duty ; 
we  wish  to  throw  ourselves  into  the  stream  of  moral 
progress.  We  need  not  ask  how  it  is  there  ;  we  need 
not  peer  down  along  its  course  to  catch  a  glimpse  of 
the  sea  into  which  it  flows.  We  want  to  throw  our- 
selves into  it  and  bathe  in  it,  because  we  know  it  is 
good ;  because  when  we  have  so  much  as  touched  our 
feet  or  hands  to  it,  we  have  experienced  its  sweet- 
ness and  felt  the  life  and  quickness  of  its  waters :  we 
want  to  because  we  are  parched  and  dry,  and  there  is 
only  an  arid  waste  around  us. 

But  if  not  the  current  religious  doctrines,^  is  it  per- 
haps science,  or  that  philosophic  attitude  of  much  of 
modern  science  known  as  agnosticism,  which  is  to  fur- 
nish a  basis  for  the  new  movement  ?  This  seems  to 
be  the  impression  of  many;  we  will  accept  nothing, 
as  they  think,  which  we  cannot  scientifically  demon- 
strate. There  is  a  certain  amount  of  truth  in  this 
impression.  One  should  be  hospitable  to  all  the  re- 
sults of  scientific  demonstration  ;  one  should  cling  to 
no  old-time  belief  against  which  there  is  a  balance 
of  scientific  evidence.  I  am  myself  in  sympathy  with 
the  methods  of  modern  science,  —  and  with  agnosti- 
cism, which  instead  of  affirming  positive  knowledge 

1  It  must  not  be  understood  that  we  thereby  propose  a  negative 
dogmatism,  and  would  exclude  those  who  believe  in  the  "  current 
religious  doctrines ; "  we  differ  from  the  churches  simply  in  not 
requiring  assent  to  them,  in  not  putting  them  at  the  basis  of  the 
Ethical  Movement. 


THE  BASIS  OF   THE  ETHICAL  MOVEMENT.     293 

is  a  confession  of  what  we  do  not  and  cannot  know. 
Kant  in  the  last  century  and  Herbert  Spencer  in  this 
were  perhaps  the  first  to  draw  the  line  clearly  be- 
tween the  realm  of  the  known  and  knowable  and  that 
of  the  unknowable.  Knowledge  is  limited  to  expe- 
rience :  what  is  beyond  experience  may  be  guessed, 
imagined,  or  thought  about ;  but  in  the  nature  of  the 
case  no  guess  or  imagination  or  thought  can  be  veri- 
fied, and  thus  converted  into  scientific  knowledge. 
This  critical  distinction  has  undermined  the  very 
foundations  of  theological  dogmatism,  and  has  taught 
to  philosophers  as  well  as  theologians  a  long-needed 
lesson  of  modesty  and  humility. 

All  this,  however,  is  very  different  from  regarding 
agnosticism  or  positive  science  as  the  basis  of  our 
movement.  In  the  new  and  clear  atmosphere  of  mod- 
ern thought,  many  of  us  have  seen  the  old  "castles  in 
the  air  "  vanish  from  our  view ;  one  by  one  they  have 
seemed  to  lose  their  basis  in  this  world  of  experi- 
ence in  which  we  live.  But  an  atmosphere  is  hardly 
a  thing  on  which  to  build,  —  it  is  at  best  a  trans- 
parent medium  through  which  and  by  the  light  of 
which  we  may  discover  the  real  foundations.  Agnos- 
ticism is  no  more  than  a  confession  of  the  limita- 
tions of  our  knowledge.  But  what  we  do  not  know  is 
hardly  a  basis  for  action.  Simply  because  men  no 
longer  believe  in  the  old  dogmas  is  no  reason  why 
they  should  form  an  Ethical  Society.  There  are 
plenty  of  agnostics  who  have  little  sympathy  with  us, 
whose  unbelief  may  perhaps  extend  to  the  foundations 
of  morality  as  well  as  to  those  of  theology,  and  who 
may  live  simply  lives  of  supercilious  and  refined  ego- 
tism.    Agnosticism  is  but  the  dry  light  of  the  intel- 


294  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

lect,  which  may  be  used  to  the  noblest  ends,  but  may 
also  be  perverted  to  the  meanest.  Nor  is  science, 
teaching  us  positively  what  we  do  know,  a  sufficient 
guide  for  us.  I  will  yield  to  none  in  my  admiration 
and  wonder  before  the  world  which  science  has  re- 
vealed to  us.  How  has  space  widened  and  time 
grown  infinite,  and  how  does  one  law  seem  to  hold 
in  its  grasp  the  mighty  movements  of  systems  and 
the  least  tear  that  trickles  down  a  child's  face!  It 
is  a  wmverse,  majestic,  solemn,  in  the  midst  of  which 
we  live,  and  it  would  seem  to  suggest  to  us  great  and 
solemn  thoughts  as  to  what  our  own  lives  should  be. 
But  when  I  turn  from  Nature  to  consider  human  life 
and  the  order  of  human  society,  my  reverence  in  one 
way  lessens  rather  than  grows  deeper.  The  science 
that  reports  faithfully,  philosophically,  the  varied 
facts  of  our  human  existence  is  not  altogether  a  plea- 
sant page  to  read.  History,  which  is  one  branch  of 
the  science  of  man,  tells  of  animalism,  of  brutal  sel- 
fishness, of  towering  wrongs,  of  slow-returning  jus- 
tice, often  of  a  blind  infuriated  justice  that  punishes 
the  innocent  and  leaves  the  guilty  free.  And  obser- 
vation —  statistics,  which  is  nothing  else  than  scien- 
tific observation  —  reveals  almost  as  many  things  that 
ought  not  to  be  as  things  which  should  be.  Statis- 
tics of  crime  are  just  as  much  science  as  would  be 
statistics  of  peace  and  order,  —  statistics  of  prosti- 
tution as  truly  scientific  as  those  of  family  purity,  of 
poverty  as  truly  as  those  of  comfort  and  competence. 
What  science  teaches  must  invariably  be  accepted  as 
fact,  but  it  may  none  the  less  provoke  moral  repul- 
sion and  rebellion.  We  may  say  to  some  of  the  facts, 
"You  have  no  right  to  be!"     Yes,  the  very  end  of 


THE  BASIS  OF  THE  ETHICAL  MOVEMENT.     295 

our  scientific  observation  may  sometimes  be  to  render 
such  observation  in  the  future  impossible,  —  that  is, 
to  destroy  the  facts.  Plainly,  then,  science  is  not  ul- 
timate. It  tells  us  simply  what  is ;  it  tells  us  noth- 
ing of  what  ought  to  be.  What  ought  to  be,  —  that 
is  reported  to  us  by  a  higher  faculty  than  that  of 
scientific  observation ;  it  is  an  assertion,  a  demand 
of  the  conscience. 

Here,  then,  is  to  my  mind  the  true  basis  of  our 
movement, — not  the  old  religions;  not  religion  itself, 
in  the  popular  understanding  of  that  term ;  not  ag- 
nosticism, though  as  matter  of  fact  some  of  us  may 
be  agnostics  ;  not  science,  though  the  facts  of  science, 
every  one  of  them,  should  have  our  recognition.  It 
is  something  deeper  and  more  ancient,  I  might  say, 
than  any  of  these  :  it  is  the  rock  of  conscience,  the 
eternal  laws  that  announce  themselves  in  man's  moral 
nature.  Our  knowledge  may  be  limited  to  the  senses ; 
but  conscience  is  not  knowledge,  —  for  knowledge  is 
of  what  is,  and  conscience  is  the  thought  of  what 
ought  to  be.  It  may  be  that  our  senses  have  never 
revealed  to  us  a  perfectly  just  man ;  that  we  have 
never  known  or  heard  of  an  absolutely  just  govern- 
ment. None  the  less  does  conscience  say  to  every 
man,  "  Thou  oughtest  to  be  just ! "  And  if  it  could 
find  voices  clear  and  strong  enough,  it  would  publish 
aloud  to  every  community  and  every  State  to-day, 
"  There  is  no  other  law  for  you  save  that  of  absolute 
justice,  and  in  the  measure  that  you  fail  therein,  you 
have  no  sanctity  and  no  defence.'^  Conscience,  in  a 
word,  ushers  us  into  an  ideal  realm.  Genuine  ethics 
have  in  this  respect  more  in  common  with  art  than 
with  science.     For  true  art,  I  take  it,  is  not  minute 


296  ETHICAL  KELIGION. 

painstaking  photography ;  it  does  not  consist  in  ren- 
dering an  object  in  the  terms  of  the  senses  unillumin- 
ated  by  the  mind,  but  in  catching  the  idea  of  the 
object,  so  that  in  witnessing  the  picture  or  the  statue 
we  seem  to  feel  the  flush  of  the  artist's  thought,  and 
are  touched  with  the  inspiration  wherewith  he  con- 
ceived and  wrought.  If  the  great  master  Shakspeare 
said  that  the  object  of  his  art  was  simply  "to  hold 
the  mirror  up  to  nature,  to  show  virtue  her  own  fea- 
ture, scorn  her  own  image,  and  the  very  age  and  body 
of  the  time  his  form  and  pressure,"  I  must  say  that 
ethics  is  an  art  of  very  different  character.  It  holds 
up  the  mirror,  not  of  the  actual,  but  of  the  ideal,  — 
that  mirror  whereby  we  feel  vice  to  be  vice,  and  know 
virtue  to  be  virtue,  and  by  which  we  judge  the  age 
and  body  of  the  time,  and  declare  what  its  form  and 
pressure  ought  to  be.  It  is  ideal  rather  than  realistic 
art  to  which  I  would  compare  ethics,  —  the  art  re- 
vealed in  the  matchless  bearing  of  an  Apollo,  in  the 
divine  grace  of  a  Venus  of  Milo,  in  the  majesty  of  an 
Angelo's  Moses,  in  the  radiant  freshness  of  a  Eapha- 
el's  Madonna.  These  are  human,  and  yet  they  are 
more  than  human ;  for  the  artist's  thought  of  the  per- 
fect has  worked  in  them,  and  we  feel  in  looking  at 
them  a  reflection  of  that  "light  which  never  was  on 
land  or  sea."  Art  is  the  realization  of  the  beautiful ; 
ethics  means  the  realization  of  the  good.  As  we  look 
on  men  and  women,  we  see  the  possibilities  of  the 
perfect  that  are  in  them,  —  we  think  of  what  they 
are  meant  to  be,  rather  than  of  what  they  are.  We 
are  to  regard  ourselves  and  society  about  us  as  plastic 
material,  in  which  the  divine  ideas  of  goodness  have 
begun  to  take  form,  but  have  never  reached  adequate 


THE  BASIS  OF  THE  ETHICAL  MOVEMENT.     297 

form,  —  and  are  so  hemmed  and  hindered,  that  if  we 
judged  with  the  senses  alone  we  might  doubt  if  they 
existed,  and  yet  to  the  eye  of  the  soul  are  still  there, 
and  need  only  to  be  seen  and  believed  in  to  again 
stir  and  move,  and  to  shape  human  life  to  finer  forms 
and  nobler  issues. 

Who  as  he  looks  on  the  face  of  human  society  can 
be  content  with  what  he  sees  there  ?  Who  does  not 
find  his  notions  of  justice,  of  humanity,  of  the  brother- 
hood in  which  men  ought  to  live,  contradicted  ?  Who 
with  a  conscience  or  a  heart  has  not  felt  that  this  sys- 
tem of  things,  in  which  self-interest  is  not  only  the 
impulse  but  the  rule  ;  in  which  we  consider  not  so 
much  the  rights  or  claims  of  men  as  the  extent  to 
which  they  may  serve  us  and  contribute  to  our  own 
gains ;  in  which  any  means,  any  oppression,  any  grind- 
ing down  that  do  not  involve  open  violence  or  fraud 
are  viewed  as  legitimate,  and  something  which  any 
one  must  practise  because  all  do,  —  who,  I  say,  has 
not  felt  that  this  system  of  things,  even  though  he 
be  a  partner  in  it,  is  wrong,  and  longed,  as  a  man  in 
thick  darkness  longs  for  light,  for  some  other  order  of 
things,  in  which  he  should  not  be  compelled  to  beat 
back  the  best  and  purest  impulses  of  his  nature  ? 
The  social  questions  are  the  questions  of  the  day. 
And  the  social  questions  are  fundamentally  moral 
questions  ;  they  involve  the  relations  of  man  to  man, 
—  and  morality  is  nothing  but  an  ideal  of  what  the 
relation  between  man  and  man  should  be.  Not  the 
smallest  subject,  or  the  merest  detail  of  it,  bearing  on 
the  rights  of  human  beings  is  out  of  the  province  of 
a  moral  teacher.  Morality  is  as  wide  as  humanity ; 
it  has  a  bearing  on  the  whole  life  of  humanity ;  it 


298  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

demands  nothing  less  than  that  every  man  have  at 
least  the  means  and  opportunity  for  a  truly  human  life. 
Material  interests  have  a  sanctity  if  they  are  human 
interests ;  the  question  of  wages  has  a  moral  bearing 
if  wages  mean  the  substratum  of  food  and  drink  and 
clothing  and  shelter,  on  which  a  human  being  is  to 
build  up  his  higher  existence.  Education  has  a  moral 
bearing :  the  devising  and  putting  into  operation  a 
rational  and  human  scheme  of  education  is  one  of  the 
moral  problems  of  the  time.  Politics  have  a  moral 
bearing :  the  State  has  no  other  end  than  justice  and 
the  general  good,  and  justice  and  the  general  good  are 
a  demand  of  morality.  "  Political "  life  should  mean 
public  life,  —  the  abandonment  of  private  interests 
or  class  interests,  and  the  dedication  of  one's  self  to 
public  interests.  I  know  not  indeed  on  what  depart- 
ment or  phase  of  life  to  cast  a  glance  and  find  that 
morality  has  no  bearing  there.  Morality  is  not  a 
suppliant,  a  beggar  asking  for  an  entrance  and  protec- 
tion in  one  corner  of  our  existence ;  it  is  a  sovereign, 
and  though  it  be  unheard  and  unnoticed,  prescribes 
the  law  and  ideal  for  the  whole.  It  has  a  bearing  on 
the  intellect,  and  condemns  the  conscienceless  inter- 
pretations of  great  doctrines,  the  clever  playing  with 
words  not  uncommon  in  some  of  our  churches.  It 
has  a  bearing  on  our  domestic  life,  forbidding  that 
any  one  should  be  a  slave  there.  It  has  a  bearing  on 
our  pleasures,  on  our  business,  on  the  conduct  of  the 
State.  It  is  indeed  an  invisible  companion  cleaving 
to  us  wherever  we  go,  —  rising,  as  a  great  English- 
man^ has  said,  with  us  in  the  morning  and  going 
to  rest  with  us  at  night,  and  only  leaving  us  as  we 
1  Gladstone,  Vatican  Decrees,  §  4. 


THE  BASIS  OF  THE  ETHICAL  MOVEMENT.     299 

leave  the  light  of  life.  A  companion  do  I  say  ?  Ah, 
it  is  closer  than  any  companion,  for  though  it  warns 
us  and  commands  us,  it  does  so  in  that  supreme  act 
in  which  we  warn  and  command  ourselves ;  it  is  the 
utterance  of  the  God  in  us,  of  the  '^  prophetic  soul " 
in  which  we  all  share,  and  signifies  that  we  are  part 
and  parcel  of  another  order  of  things  than  that  which 
we  can  see  and  handle,  and  are  rooted  in  somewhat 
firmer  than  the  earth,  and  more  ancient,  more  vener- 
able than  the  heavens.  To  get  a  new  sense  of  this 
inward  monitor ;  to  feel  that  its  demands  are  be- 
yond any  mere  traditional  rules  of  goodness,  that  it 
means  not  this  or  that  good  thing,  but  all  good ;  to 
have  thus  an  infinite  horizon  open  to  our  view,  and 
to  feel  that  a  path  of  ceaseless  progress  lies  before 
us,  —  this  is  to  me  the  aim  and  significance  of  the 
Ethical  Movement. 

I  know  the  churches  speak  sometimes  of  "mere 
morality,''  and  ask  if  that  can  save  a  man.  I  answer 
readily  that  a  surface,  mechanical  morality,  no  matter 
by  whom  practised,  does  not  and  cannot  save  a  man. 
But  if  so,  the  call  in  my  judgment  is  not  for  some- 
thing to  take  the  place  of  morality,  but  for  a  larger, 
a  more  perfect  morality,  —  one  covering  the  whole  of 
life,  and  allowing  no  nook  or  corner  of  it  to  lie  outside 
of  the  sacred  sway  of  the  just  and  the  good.  It  is 
a  higher  standard  of  righteousness  which  the  world 
needs,  —  one  which  shall  convict  even  the  religions  of 
the  day  of  the  lowness  of  their  own  standards  ;  which 
shall  awaken  the  slumbering  consciences  of  men,  and 
regenerate  life,  private  and  social.  If  the  churches 
had  the  idea  of  morality  as  a  principle,  would  they 
dare  to  speak  of  it  in  this  slighting  way?    No;  by 


300  ETHICAL  EELIGION. 

morality  they  mean  custom  or  tradition,  or  at  best  a 
set  of  commands  given  by  Moses  or  Jesus,  and  written 
down  in  a  book.  That  it  is  an  independent  idea  and 
^  law  of  man's  own  mind,  prior  to  all  custom  and  tradi- 
tion and  books  and  persons,  and  so  capable  of  super- 
seding them  all  and  making  them  antiquated,  is  hard- 
ly imagined.  But  it  is  nothing  else  than  this  that  1 
mean  by  proposing  the  pure  dictates  of  conscience  as 
the  basis  of  our  movement.  We  assert  the  independ- 
ence of  morality.  We  do  not  rest  on  dogma,  because 
there  is  something  in  man  closer  and  more  constitu- 
tional to  him  than  dogma ;  we  do  not  rest  on  history, 
because  we  believe  that  within  man  lie  the  springs 
of  history,  and  that  history's  grandest  movements 
started  from  no  inspiration  that  we  cannot  draw  on 
equally  well  to-day.  The  modern  world  talks  of  pro- 
gress :  we  believe  in  moral  progress,  that  the  ideas  of 
righteousness  are  not  stationary,  but  capable  of  end- 
less expansion ;  that  there  can  be  no  final  statement 
of  ethics  ;  that  men  may  get  scruples  in  the  future 
that  they  have  no  thought  of  now  ;  that,  for  example, 
a  sense  of  justice  may  develop  that  will  make  our 
present  manner  of  conducting  business  and  industry 
a  reproach  and  a  shame. 

It  is  a  word  of  this  sort  which  I  should  like  to 
throw  out  among  men  and  women  of  to-day.  It  is  a 
new  centre  of  interest,  a  new  basis  of  union,  that  we 
have  to  propose.  The  old  religions,  and  Liberalism 
in  its  present  forms,  rest  on  other  issues.  Judaism 
is  a  race  religion,  —  a  pure,  a  lofty  religion,  but  still 
a  race  religion.  Christianity  is  more  universal,  but 
it  is  founded  on  and  limited  by  Jesus  of  Nazareth ; 
and  though  I  will  not  be  surpassed  in  genuine  rev- 


THE  BASIS   OF  THE  ETHICAL  MOVEMENT.     301 

erence  for  that  unique  figure,  that  image  of  blended 
majesty  and  gentleness  which  has  cast  a  light  down 
the  centuries,  and  has  rarely  been  without  influence, 
even  when  Christians  were  maddest  and  most  bigoted, 
truth  equally  compels  the  admission  that  Jesus  does 
not  furnish  a  basis  broad  enough  and  large  enough 
for  the  present  and  coming  time.  Yes,  Jesus  him- 
self rests  upon  a  deeper  foundation  in  the  reason 
and  conscience  of  man ;  and  on  that  bottom  rock  we 
may  stand  to-day  as  truly  as  he  stood,  and  may  build 
upon  it  as  serenely,  with  as  undaunted  a  faith  and  as 
firm  a  hope,  as  ever  he  or  his  followers  did  eighteen 
hundred  years  ago.  No  more  satisfactory  is  ordinary 
Liberalism.  It  is  still  largely  critical ;  it  is  often  but 
a  wild  and  bitter  attack  on  the  old  religions ;  it  is 
at  best  a  calm  and  clear  perception  that  the  old  re- 
ligions are  no  longer  possible  ta  us ;  it  is  not  sel- 
dom coupled  with  indifference  to  moral  questions,  and 
where  it  is  zealous,  its  zeal  must  often  be  confessed 
to  be  on  the  wrong  side.  I  believe  the  future  is  for 
those  who  have  cut  loose  from  the  old-time  forms  and 
creeds,  and  who  have  no  patience  with  them.  But 
their  impatience  must  go  further ;  they  must  become 
impatient  with  themselves  and  with  the  moral  state 
of  the  community ;  they  must  turn  a  deaf  and  relent- 
less ear  to  all  the  siren  calls  that  would  confound 
liberty  with  license;  they  must  rather  own  the  call 
of  stricter  rules,  of  higher  ideals  of  duty,  and  feel 
that  with  the  old  citadels  of  faith  in  ruins  at  their 
feet  their  work  has  but  begun.  It  is  to  earnest  and 
brave-hearted  men  and  women  who  will  turn  their 
faces  in  this  direction,  that  the  Ethical  Movement 
addresses  itself. 


302  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

For  let  me  make  clear  that  tlie  basis  of  our  move- 
ment is  not  a  theory  of  morality,  but  morality  itself. 
The  moral  teacher  is  not  primarily  to  give  a  metaphy- 
sical philosophy  of  ethics,  to  propagate  transcenden- 
talism or  utilitarianism,  —  though  he  may  have  views 
'  of  his  own,  and  on  occasion  need  not  refrain  from  ex- 
pressing them.^  He  desires  rather,  if  he  can,  to  hold 
up  the  idea  of  the  good  itself ;  to  make  men  love  it 
for  its  own  sake,  and  own  its  beauty  in  the  conduct, 
in  the  beautiful  order  and  beneficence  of  their  lives. 
There  is  but  one  theory  of  morals  against  which  I 
have  any  feeling,  and  this  not  because  it  is  a  theory, 
but  because  it  is  subversive  of  morality  itself.  I 
mean  the  view  which  we  now  and  then  hear  advo- 
cated, that  morality  is  but  a  refined  selfishness,  a 
long-sighted  prudence ;  that  the  end  of  life  is  and 
can  be  nowhere  else  than  in  the  accumulation  of  in- 
dividual pleasures,  and  the  avoidance  of  individual 
pains.  That  man  cannot  go  out  of  himself;  that  he 
cannot  love  another  equally  with  himself;   that  he 

1  I  may  be  permitted  to  quote  the  following  notable  words  of 
the  late  lamented  Professor  T.  H.  Green,  of  Oxford,  which  I  have 
come  upon  since  writing  the  above  :  — 

**  It  is  probable,  indeed,  that  every  movement  of  religious  reform 
has  originated  in  some  clearer  conception  of  the  ideal  of  human 
conduct,  arrived  at  by  some  person  or  persons,  —  a  conception, 
perhaps,  toward  which  many  men  have  been  silently  working, 
but  which  finally  finds  in  some  one  individual  the  character  which 
can  give  decisive  practical  expression  to  it.  But  in  the  initiation 
of  religious  reforms,  the  new  theory  of  the  ideal,  as  a  theory, 
always  holds  a  secondary  place.  It  is  not  absent,  but  it  is,  so  to 
speak,  absorbed  in  a  character,  —  a  character  to  which  the  specu- 
lative completeness  of  the  theory  is  of  little  interest ;  and  it  is 
this  character  which  gives  the  new  conception  of  the  ideal  its 
power  in  the  world."     (Prolegomena  to  Ethics,  p.  36L) 


THE  BASIS  OF  THE  ETHICAL  MOVEMENT.    303 

cannot  find  an  end  of  his  being  in  his  family,  in  the 
community,  in  the  State  ;  that  for  all  these  he  cannot 
live,  and  cannot  die  rather  than  see  them  dishonored, 

—  this  is  what  I  call  the  real  infidelity,  and  whether 
uttered  by  priest  or  philosopher  has  and  always  shall 
have  my  dissent  and  my  rebuke.  Morality  is  this 
going  out  of  one's  self  and  living  in,  living  for,  some- 
thing larger.  Prudence,  selfishness,  —  these  are  and 
may  well  be  the  servants,  the  attendants  on  morality ; 
they  never  dare  take  the  place  of  masters.  Aside  from 
this,  which  is  not  a  theory  but  a  statement  of  moral- 
ity, a  moral  teacher  need  have  little  to  say,  at  least  at 
the  start,  of  the  philosophy  of  ethics.  It  is  something 
far  more  primary  and  simple  than  philosophy,  even 
the  truest,  that  must  be  our  immediate  concern.  It 
is  the  practically  proving  to  the  world  that  morality 
is  an  adequate  foundation  for  our  lives ;  it  is  the  de- 
monstrating that  unselfishness  can  be  by  showing  it ; 
yes,  it  is,  I  sincerely  hope  and  trust,  proving  that  a 
higher  morality  is  possible  than  the  world  now  allows, 

—  proving  it  by  the  stricter  purity  of  our  private 
lives,  by  higher  notions  of  honor  in  our  business  or 
professional  relations,  by  juster  conduct  to  our  em- 
ployees ;  yes,  by  a  new  wave  of  sympathy  and  human- 
ity that  shall  take  us  out  of  ourselves  and  out  of  our 
business,  and  make  us  bear  the  burdens  of  the  sick 
and  the  poor  and  the  forlorn  in  our  community  as 
they  have  never  been  borne  before. 


XVI. 

THE  SUPREMACY  OF  ETHICS. 

WHEN  all  else  that  tlie  religious  world  holds 
dear  falls  or  becomes  uncertain,  confidence 
in  duty  may  remain  unshaken.  One  may  doubt  all 
the  articles  of  the  Christian  creed,  and  have  much 
pain  in  doing  so,  yet  never  be  confused,  never  have 
shame  ;  but  to  doubt  that  love  and  truth  and  honor 
are  binding  upon  us  is  so  unnatural  that  it  can  only 
be  accounted  for  on  the  supposition  of  some  moral 
obliquity.  These  moral  laws  of  our  being  are  so 
close  and  constitutional  to  us,  that  the  very  existence 
of  virtue  is  bound  up  with  a  recognition  of  them.  A 
man  is  virtuous  on  principle,  or  he  is  not  virtuous  at 
all,  though  he  may  conform  to  all  the  external  re- 
quirements of  virtue;  and  if  there  is  no  principle, 
no  sovereign  ought,  constraining,  commanding,  and 
forbidding,  there  is  no  morality.  Morality  is  not 
a  matter  of  taste,  of  personal  preference,  or  of  tem- 
perament ;  it  is  obedience  to  a  command,  it  is  self- 
surrender  to  the  OUGHT  that  sounds  within  us,  it  is 
the  free  choice  of  what  we  cannot  avoid  choosing 
without  shame  and  dishonor. 

"If  that  fail, 
The  pillared  firmament  is  rottenness, 
And  earth's  base  built  on  stubble." 


THE   SUPREMACY  OF  ETHICS.  305 

The  Ethical  Movement,  as  I  understand  it,  plants 
itself  on  this  ultimate  crowning  fact  of  man's  na- 
ture. We  start  with  a  certainty.  Human  beings  do 
not  choose  the  sovereign  laws  of  duty  and  make  them 
laws  those  laws  would  be  over  us,  did  we  not  choose 
them ;  they  rather  choose  us.  Man  no  more  creates 
the  moral  world  of  obligation  than  he  does  the  phy- 
sical one  of  fact ;  he  has  only  to  fit  himself  into  it, 
and  let  its  sublimity  make  him  sublime.  Man  is  not 
the  summit  of  things :  as  the  heavens  bend  over  his 
body  and  the  stars  unalterably  shine,  so  the  moral 
law  arches  over  the  soul  of  man,  and  he  is  greatest  as 
he  bends  in  lowly  worship  to  it.  Nobleness,  magna- 
nimity, great-hearted  love,  unswerving  truth,  —  these 
are  not  ours,  but  we  are  theirs,  bound  to  them  as  the 
iron  to  the  magnet,  as  the  needle  to  the  star,  as  the 
tides  to  the  ^^ far-off  orb"  of  heaven  ;  bound  to  them, 
that  is,  in  idea,  and  should  be  in  fact. 

Great  and  reassuring  are  the  lessons  of  the  moral 
sentiment.  It  gives  us  a  place  whereon  to  plant  our 
feet.  It  casts  out  fear.  See  how  it  deals  with  the 
fear  of  so  many  anxious  minds  that  in  face  of  modern 
conditions  not  only  Christianity,  but  religion  itself 
will  pass  away  from  the  world.  We  live  in  an  age 
of  transition,  and  all  the  way  from  the  Catholic  to  the 
Unitarian  there  are  mutterings  and  tremblings,  as  if 
in  case  this  or  that  or  the  other  creed  loses  its  hold 
on  man  the  stays  and  consolations  of  human  life  will 
be  gone.  Idle  fears !  Religion,  so  far  as  it  has  not 
been  the  outgrowth  and  blossoming  of  the  moral  sen- 
timent, has  been  at  best  an  expensive  luxury  to  the 
race,  and  has  come  near  to  being  a  curse.  That  man's 
peace  and  happiness  and  safety  depend  upon  beings 

20 


306  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

whose  favor  must  be  gained  by  costly  sacrifices  and 
prayers,  —  this  belief,  that  made  the  basis  of  primi- 
tive religion,  and  survives  in  all  the  great  branches 
of  the  Christian  Church,  has  caused  more  distress  of 
mind,  more  false  torments  of  conscience,  more  waste 
of  energy,  moral  and  material,  than  we  can  ever  cal- 
culate or  dream  of.  Eeligion  —  the  thought  of  it  in 
the  past,  I  mean  —  is  only  endurable  to  the  free  man 
and  earnest  lover  of  his  kind  as  moral  elements  have 
been  taken  up  into  it  and  an  end  has  been  made  of 
sacrifices ;  as  the  prayers  have  come  to  be  prayers 
for  righteousness,  —  or  else  have  ceased  altogether 
before  the  stern  determination  to  be  righteous  at 
whatever  cost;  as  religion  has  come  to  mean  right- 
eousness, and  the  will  of  God  has  been  identified  with 
the  good  of  man.  But  the  moral  sentiment  that  has 
played  such  a  transforming  and  revolutionary  part  in 
the  field  of  religion  in  the  past  is  still  with  us ;  it 
was  never  more  alive  than  to-day.  It  is  born  into 
the  world  with  every  child ;  it  is  as  fresh  as  if  this 
were  creation's  morn.  It  is  that  from  which  we  can- 
not get  away,  in  regard  to  which  scepticism  is  absurd, 
and  out  of  which,  in  conjunction  with  modern  culture, 
shall  come,  I  believe,  a  nobler  religion  than  the  world 
has  ever  known  before. 

The  depths,  not  of  fear,  but  of  awe,  were  never 
stirred  in  man  till  he  felt  the  sublime  promptings  of 
the  OUGHT  within  him.  The  ancient  gods  or  goddesses 
were  never  truly  reverend  and  august  till  they  were 
regarded  as  the  authors  of  the  pure  and  high  com- 
mands that  give  the  law  to  man's  life  and  conduct ; 
and  so  far  as  they  were  interpreted  in  this  way,  they 
must  always  be  revered.     The  moral  sentiment  bios- 


THE  SUPREMACY  OF  ETHICS.  307 

soms  as  naturally  into  a  religious  faith  as  the  buds 
of  spring  open  out  into  leaf  or  flower.  A  man  may 
give  up  all  that  passes  current  as  religion,  —  give  up 
God  and  Immortality  and  Prayer  (in  the  customary 
senses),  as  well  as  the  claims  of  the  Church  or  of 
Jesus,  —  yet  if  he  keep  his  hold  on  morality,  if  he 
bend  before  Truth  and  Justice  and  Love,  if  he  feel 
there  is  something  sovereign  within  him  which  it 
were  better  to  die  than  to  forget,  he  is  on  the  open 
highway  that  leads  to  those  grand  confidences  and 
trusts  that  are  the  imperishable  part  of  religion. 

For  the  sense  of  morality  is  the  sense  of  somewhat 
sacred,  holy ;  it  is  the  sense  of  a  law  above  all  other 
laws.  There  is  not  a  law  of  Nature  that  may  not  con- 
ceivably be  altered  or  suspended,  or  that  we  may  not 
violate  or  defy,  should  duty  command.  We  use  Na- 
ture every  day,  —  her  forces,  her  laws,  we  are  forever 
turning  to  account.  We  cannot  worship  Nature  or  the 
sum  of  Nature's  powers.  That  sovereign  allegiance 
and  fealty  we  owe  to  what  is  absolutely  inviolable, 
to  what  we  dare  not  use,  to  what  exists  for  its  own 
sake,  and  we  for  it, — to  Goodness,  to  Love,  to  eternal 
Truth.  The  moral  sentiment  dwarfs  Nature,  it  goes 
out  to  that  which  is  beyond  Nature.  What  is  reg- 
nant in  the  universe  is  no  fact,  nor  sum  of  facts ; 
no  law  in  the  actual  sense,  nor  sum  of  laws,  —  but  a 
commandment.  And  the  deepest,  the  bottom  thing  in 
the  universe  must  be  that  which  is  capable  of  giving 
a  commandment :  not  matter,  then,  nor  force,  nor  will, 
but  reason,  or  that  ineffable  reality  of  which  human 
reason  is  a  poor  and  shadowy  suggestion.  Matter 
is  phenomenal ;  our  thoughts  come  and  go,  our  acts 
are  ill-matched  even  with  our  thoughts;  but  that  to 


308  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

which  our  thoughts  aspire,  and  from  which  alas  they 
so  often  wander,  does  not  change  with  our  changing, 
does  not  rise  when  we  rise,  or  fall  when  we  fall,  —  but 
though  we  die,  though  the  wide  earth  and  the  ever- 
lasting hills  fade  away  into  insubstantial  mist  and 
the  heavens  are  rolled  together  as  a  scroll,  lives  for- 
ever !  Without  morality  and  the  infinite  suggestions 
it  makes,  worship  could  not  find  an  object,  and  the 
word  "adorable"  would  have  to  pass  out  of  literature, 
—  and  this,  though  so-called  religious  men  at  the  pres- 
ent day  have  such  partial  conceptions  of  morality  that 
they  contrast  religion  with  it,  and  speak  of  something 
above  morality,  and  in  addition  to  ethics  plead  for  de- 
votional truths  as  well.  Something  above  justice  and 
goodness !  —  there  is  nothing  above.  Devotional  truth 
in  addition  to  ethics !  —  't  is  the  merest  sentimental- 
ity. Eeligion  has  had  connected  with  it  much  besides 
ethics  in  the  past ;  it  has  been  weighted  with  blood 
and  with  lust,  and  to-day  it  is  weighted  with  unre- 
ality and  maudlin  sentiment  and  cant.  But  so  far 
as  it  has  had  more,  it  has  been  a  disturber  and  full 
of  harm  to  men  ;  and  so  far  as  it  has  more  to-day, 
being  no  longer  taken  seriously,  it  is  at  best  a  su- 
perfluity, which  self-respecting  men  and  women  are 
apt  to  do  without.  Duty  is  ordinarily  divided  into 
duties  to  man  and  duties  to  God.  But  there  are 
no  duties  to  God  in  the  sense  implied,  nor  have  we 
reason  to  suppose  that  God  as  so  conceived  exists. 
"God''  is  the  infinite  element  in  all  duty,  its  eternal 
basis,  without  which  duty  and  man  and  the  world 
would  alike  disappear. 

And  what  an  aim  does  ethics  give  to  man  !     With 
what  solemnity  does  it  invest  our  life  !    We  are  here 


THE  SUPREMACY  OF  ETHICS.  309 

to  lift  ourselves  to  the  measure  of  perfect  goodness ; 
society  exists  to  lift  itself  to  perfect  justice.  Life 
is  not  for  living  merely,  but  for  living  so  that  some- 
what divine  may  be  incorporated  into  it.  How  low 
men's  thoughts  ordinarily  are  !  Eeligion  itself  some- 
times takes  sides  with  the  world  as  it  is,  and  dis- 
trusts reform.  How  many  in  his  Church  to-day 
would  hear  Jesus,  should  he  come  again  enraptured 
with  his  thought  of  a  coming  kingdom  of  God  ? 
Was  ever  socialist  so  wild  and  visionary  as  he  ?  Car- 
lyle  used  to  say  there  was  properly  no  religion  in 
England.  A  stern  saying,  but  when  we  remember 
how  stern  a  thing  religion  is  (or  it  is  nothing) ;  when 
we  remember  the  fact  of  absolute  obligation,  which 
is  its  essence,  and  ask  ourselves  how  many  men  and 
women  in  our  own  country  live  invisibly  bound  to 
truth  and  honor  and  justice,  —  we  cannot  deny  all 
credence  to  the  saying,  and  may  ask  ourselves.  Are 
we  in  America  much  better  off  ?  Our  own  Emerson 
spoke  nearly  fifty  years  ago  of  "  the  universal  decay, 
and  now  almost  death,  of  faith  in  society.'^  The 
Church,  he  declared,  "  had  lost  its  grasp  on  the  affec- 
tion of  the  good  and  the  fear  of  the  bad."  ^  It  is  as 
if  Christianity  had  at  last  got  itself  well  lodged  in 
this  world,  and  had  forgotten  its  dreams  of  another. 
Yet  its  dream  of  another,  its  vision  of  a  perfect  so- 
ciety that  should  replace  the  present  order  based  so 
largely  on  selfishness  and  cruelty  and  wrong,  was  at 
the  beginning  its  very  inspiration  and  life.  Hence 
its  high  demands,  its  seemingly  impracticable  pre- 
cepts ;  hence  its  enthusiasm,  that  swept  through  an 
old  decaying  society  like  fire,  destroying  and  recre- 
1  Divinity  School  Address,  1838. 


310  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

ating.  There  is  little  of  this  enthusiasm  now.  You 
cannot  have  enthusiasm  and  commonplace  aims.  En- 
thusiasm is  born  of  an  idea,  and  idealism  is  at  a  low- 
ebb  among  the  churches.  There  is  probably  more 
idealism  outside  the  Church  than  within  it;  it  is  born 
in  mangers  again,  and  makes  its  home  in  despised 
social  reformers,  among  men  who  cannot  live  and 
see  the  world  go  on  as  it  is.  The  trouble,  on  the 
other  hand,  with  our  social  reform  is  that  it  does  not 
start  from  within,  that  it  is  partial,  that  its  aims  are 
not  severe  and  grand  enough ;  and  so  its  enthusi- 
asm is  finite,  and  does  not  reach  the  depths  of  man. 
Not  resentment  and  not  wrath,  but  the  moral  senti- 
ment must  give  anew  the  aim  to  human  life.  Once 
more  must  the  call  go  forth  for  a  perfect  life ;  once 
more  must  it  be  brought  home  to  man  that  not  food 
nor  raiment  nor  shelter,  not  comfort  nor  ease,  not  sci- 
ence nor  art,  are  the  end  of  existence;  but  the  "  king- 
dom of  God ; "  and  that  this  is  not  only  the  end  but 
the  beginning,  since  without  justice  and  human  sym- 
pathy science  and  art  may  minister  to  vice  as  well 
as  virtue,  and  not  even  comfort  or  daily  bread  are 
necessarily  within  the  reach  of  all.  Louise  Michel, 
predicting  the  outcome  of  the  social  revolution,  says 
that  man,  having  at  last  attained  his  plenitude,  being 
no  longer  hungry  nor  cold,  nor  afflicted  by  any  of  the 
miseries  of  the  present  time,  will  be  good.^  I  see  not 
one  ray  of  hope  for  humanity  in  such  a  philosophy. 
The  tendency  of  the  evolutionary  doctrine  is,  to  a 
certain  extent,  to  hold  justice  impracticable,  save  in 
an  ideal  state  of  society.  But  justice  is  commanded, 
and  is  the  only  thing  that  is  practicable  now  or  in 
1  Chicago  Times,  Feb.  14, 1885. 


THE   SUPREMACY  OF   ETHICS.  311 

any  state  of  society.  Goodness  is  the  sovereign  law 
of  life,  first  as  well  as  last ;  it  is  sovereign  over  life,  as 
even  Patagonian  Indians  may  feel,  —  three  of  whom, 
Darwin  tells  us,  once  allowed  themselves  to  be  shot, 
one  after  the  other,  rather  than  betray  their  com- 
panions in  war.^  I  look  for  the  social  reformer  who 
shall  appeal  to  the  sublime  in  man ;  who  shall  be 
able  to  hold  a  savage,  angry  mob  in  check,  and  make 
them  more  willing  to  die  than  to  do  wrong ;  and  who 
shall  pierce  with  the  power  of  his  convictions  through 
the  lying  and  sophistical  selfishness  of  the  prosperous, 
and  make  them  own  with  trembling  the  law  they  now 
defy,  and  by  his  persuasiveness  entreat  them  and  woo 
them,  so  that  with  tears  and  penitent  gladness  they 
will  do  tasks  of  love  and  tenderest  good-will.  Such 
social  reform  will  be  religion  once  more  on  the  face 
of  the  earth ;  such  a  reformer  will  be  another  Christ, 
come  with  his  solemn  p.urity,  his  high  faith,  his  un- 
conquerable love,  to  shame  and  to  heal  the  world. 

What  power,  what  omnipotence,  will  come  in  that 
day  to  our  poor  old  human  nature,  —  poor  now  only 
because  it  will  not  surrender  itself  to  the  moral  senti- 
ment, because  it  will  not  unlock  its  heart  and  receive 
of  the  infinite  riches  of  justice  and  love  that  lie  for- 
ever waiting  and  even  knocking  at  the  door !  The 
moral  sentiment  is  deliverance,  —  it  is  the  open  door  to 
infinite  power.  When,  in  answer  to  the  inner  impera- 
tive, man  obeys,  he  is  rejuvenated,  and  feels  the  fresh- 
ness of  an  eternal  day  in  his  heart  and  through  all 
the  arteries  of  his  being.  There  is  no  age  to  the 
spirit  that  lives  in  high  sentiments.  "  Always  young 
for  liberty,"  exclaimed  Dr.  Channing.  The  faith  born 
1  Descent  of  Man,  p.  Ill,  n. 


312  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

of  ethics  is  that  man  can  do  the  right.  The  impera- 
tive itself  brings  the  power  to  meet  it.  To  say  that 
duty  commands  us  but  that  we  cannot  obey,  is  to 
suppose  a  lie  in  the  nature  of  things.  There  is  no 
duty  if  I  cannot  perform  it.  And  as  duty  exists  and 
charms  and  binds  me,  I  know  I  can  do  it.  The  will  is 
not  bound.  Men  say  we  are  born  selfish,  avaricious, 
lustful,  and  cannot  be  otherwise.  You  can  be  ;  and 
the  first  thing  is  to  feel  in  your  heart  of  hearts  that 
you  ought  to  be,  —  and  the  iron  weight  of  that  ob- 
ligation felt  in  your  inmost  soul  will  transform  you 
and  give  you  its  iron  strength.  Yet  how  the  reli- 
gion of  the  day  travesties  our  nature !  Not  only  does 
Orthodoxy  teach  the  impotency  of  man,  but  Liberal 
Christianity  teaches  the  necessity  of  prayer,  which 
comes  to  the  same  thing,  —  saying  that  we  poor  crea- 
tures are  weak  and  must  have  help.  But  Emerson 
answers,  "  Such  as  you  are,  the  gods  themselves  could 
not  help  you."  Again,  '^  The  weight  of  the  universe 
is  pressed  down  on  the  shoulders  of  each  moral 
agent  to  hold  him  to  his  task.  The  only  path  of 
escape  known  in  all  the  worlds  of  God  is  perform- 
ance."^ There  is  a  breath  as  of  mountain  air  in 
such  words,  —  invigoration  and  re-invigoration  for  the 
moral  life  of  man,  and  the  secret  of  regeneration  for 
religion,  which,  as  Emerson  says,  now  effeminates  and 
demoralizes.  It  is  a  sublime  faith  that  whatever  the 
outward  seeming,  man  is  made  for  the  good ;  that, 
starting  imperfect,  he  is  called  to  be  perfect ;  that 
society  and  all  the  races  of  men  have  the  way  open 
to  an  infinite  goal,  which  they  will  fail  to  reach  only 
if  they  do  not  will  to.  What  is  wanting  in  us,  what 
1  "  Worship,"  in  Conduct  of  Life. 


THE   SUPREMACY  OF   ETHICS.  313 

is  wanting  in  society,  is  not  the  power,  but  the  wiH, 
to  do  and  dare  and  suffer.  The  wide  earth  might 
be  a  scene  of  justice  to-morrow,  and  every  city  of  our 
land  transformed  into  a  City  of  the  Light,  if  men 
and  women  would  wake  with  to-morrow's  sun  to  will 
the  good  which  now  lies  like  a  half -formed  vision  in 
their  minds. 

It  is  thus  that  the  moral  sentiment  gives  a  great 
peace  to  the  soul.  Things  often  seem  so  bad  about  us 
that  we  are  tempted  to  think  evil  cleaves  to  the  na- 
ture of  things.  With  all  the  boasted  progress  of  the 
modern  world  in  industry  and  inventions,  things  seem 
little  better  for  the  mass  of  men.  The  spectacle  of 
debasement  and  misery  among  large  classes  in  the 
very  centres  of  our  civilization  and  culture,  is  almost 
maddening  to  a  sensitive  nature,  and  easily  breeds 
despair.  If  all  this  suffering  and  wrong  are  neces- 
sary, there  is  no  escape  from  the  conclusion  that  this 
is  a  black  and  cruel  world  we  live  in  ;  and  the  only 
way  to  live  and  to  have  any  contentment  is  to  harden 
one's  heart  and  keep  out  of  suffering  one's  self.  But 
suffering  and  wrong  are  not  necessary ;  they  might 
as  well  not  be  as  be,  —  nay,  they  never  would  be  if 
men  listened  to  the  promptings  from  on  high  that 
visit  them.  Suffering  and  wrong  are  foreign  to  the 
nature  of  things,  they  are  contradictory  to  it,  they 
exist  despite  it.  The  Heart  of  the  world  is  sound ; 
and  would  we  but  give  way  to  it  in  our  own  hearts, 
the  face  of  society  might  be  as  fair  as  Nature  is  in 
her  most  joyous  moods.  We  have  not  to  make  the 
world  over,  but  only  ourselves.  In  the  midst  of  our 
work  we  can  adore,  and  pass  into  that  central  peace 
which  laps  the  world  about,  and  which  all  our  heat 


314  ETHICAL  KELIGION. 

and  worry  cannot  disturb,  nor  man's  extremest  faith- 
lessness mar.  If  man  does  not  do  the  good,  he  can- 
not have  peace,  —  that  is  all.  An  ethical  religion  is 
nowise  concerned  with  the  justification  of  the  order 
of  society  as  it  is ;  it  has  little  in  common  with  the 
weak  optimism  that  sometimes  passes  current  as  re- 
ligion ;  it  must  oppose  those  canting  economists  who 
say  that  there  being  no  such  thing  as  chance,  the 
Christian  must  regard  present  social  conditions  as 
the  best  possible,  else  they  would  not  be  consistent 
with  the  orderings  of  a  wise  Providence.  If  a  man 
is  given  a  task,  and  is  not  faithful  to  it,  the  result 
cannot  be  the  best  possible.  The  integrity  and  sanity 
of  things  nowise  requires  a  justification  of  the  pres- 
ent order  of  things.  The  high  God  commands  to 
almost  all  the  mighty  of  this  world,  and  to  many 
more  besides,  to  do  differently  from  what  they  do ;  and 
as  long  as  they  do  not  obey,  they  are  off  the  track 
appointed  for  them,  and  the  integrity  of  things  is 
only  concerned  in  forever  bringing  them  to  nought. 
Where  did  Jesus  find  peace  as  he  confronted  the 
order  of  society  in  his  day  ?  In  the  thought  of  a 
judgment  that  should  destroy  it.  Oh,  Friend,  curse 
thyself,  curse  thy  neighbor  and  society  about  thee, 
but  not  the  fundamental  arrangement  of  things  !  — 
bless  that;  thou  canst  not  dream  so  high  as  it  makes 
possible.  Heard  already  are  the  voices  which  if  thou 
and  all  wouldst  hear,  the  dread  chaos  and  anarchy 
that  now  dishearten  thee  would  pass  away. 

Out  of  all  this  high  spirit  of  faith  and  obedience, 
and  as  the  issue  of  it  all,  is  bred  a  great  hope.  Our 
current  doctrine  of  immortality  is  weak ;  it  has  little 
moral  fibre  in  it.     That  august  possibility  for  valor- 


THE  SUPREMACY  OF  ETHICS.  315 

ous  and  virtuous  souls  is  made  the  property  of  all 
alike ;  and  no  drivelling  saint  or  damnable  sinner 
but  imagines  he  or  she  is  going  to  live  again,  and 
live  forever.  There  was  never  such  effrontery.  We 
have  reason  to  believe  there  is  another  life,  if  there 
are  souls  worthy  of  it.  The  mystery  is  that  wicked, 
frivolous,  selfish  men  and  women  live  out  their  nat- 
ural term  of  life  here  ;  the  gods  are  surely  gracious 
and  long-suffering  to  permit  it ;  and  when  death 
brings  to  an  end  their  vain  career,  't  would  seem  the 
part  of  piety  to  let  them  rest  in  eternal  forgetful- 
ness.  But  for  the  good  the  heart  conjectures  a  bet- 
ter fate.  The  good  are  simply  those  who  respond  to 
the  demands  which  the  invisible  world  makes  upon 
them.  They  only  are  good  who  are  so  because  they 
must  be,  because  a  divine  necessity  constrains  them, 
because  they  could  not  hold  up  their  heads  if  they 
were  unfaithful,  because  in  such  a  case  they  would  feel 
like  traitors  to  the  trust  the  universe  had  assigned 
to  them.  The  value  of  a  faithful  soul  is  beyond  all 
estimation.  Duty  is  that  by  which  we  link  ourselves 
to  absolute  being,  and  by  which  absolute  being  links 
itself  in  turn  to  us.  Perishing  man  looks  aloft  and 
sees  the  imperishable,  and  with  every  moral  act  the 
imperishable  becomes  a  part  of  him.  JSTo  atom,  no 
tree,  no  animal,  no  man  incapable  of  self-surrender, 
has  this  worth  and  incomparable  dignity.  The  stars 
in  heaven  are  not  so  grand  as  man  living  in  obedi- 
ence to  the  moral  sentiment,  and  dying  when  it  is 
"  better  not  to  live."  Yet  there  is  no  caste  in  virtue. 
In  this  lore,  in  this  imperishable  wealth,  the  great 
of  this  world  have  no  monopoly.  The  dignity  that 
dignifies  the  highest  is  within  reach  of  the  lowliest. 


316  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

The  savage  Patagonian,  the  obscure  reformer,  martyrs 
and  heroes  who  died  in   nooks  and   corners  of  the 
world,  and  all  who  loved  and  did  the  right,  are  the 
stars  that  shine  in  this  firmament ;   and  all  others 
count  for  nothing.     This  world  will  pass  away;  the 
generations  of  men  are  going,  and  sometime  will  all 
be  gone ;  nothing  in  Nature  or  that  belongs  to  Nature 
stays  ;  there  is  nought  permanent  or  everlasting  out- 
side the  blessed  Powers  that  are  over  all  and  in  all. 
Yet  a  high  presentiment  arises  in  the  breast  that  out 
of  all  the  countless  personalities  that  have  been  or 
shall  be  born  on  "  this  bank  and  shoal  of  time,"  there 
shall  be  some  accounted  worthy  to  share  with  these 
blessed  Powers  their  own  eternity.     Such  a  faith  is 
too  great  for  demonstration ;  it  rests  on  the  cumula- 
tive suggestions  and  inspirations  of  the  moral  senti- 
ment.    But  it  is  that  kind  of  immortality  which  has 
supreme  interest  for  the  morally  serious  man.     That 
we  are  inherently  immortal  I  can  discover  very  little 
reason  for  supposing ;  that  any  authority,  whether  of 
holy  book  or  holy  church,  could  settle  the  question 
for  us  seems  like  an  offence  to  reason.     Our  personal 
affections  and  desires  of  reunion  do  not  appear  to  be 
a  solid  foundation ;  Jesus  says  not  a  word  in  their 
favor,  though  he  does  speak  of  those  who  shall  be 
"accounted  worthy  to  attain  to  that  world  and  the 
resurrection  of  the  dead."  ^     That  science  can   ever 
give  us  proof  of  immortality  seems  improbable,  since 
science,  save  in  its  purely  formal  aspects,  deals  with 
the  sensible  (that  is,  with  what  may  be  observed  or 
experimented  upon) ;  and  immortality  is  a  truth,  if  it 
be  one,  of  the  super-sensible.     The  doubtful  vistas  of 
1  Luke  XX.  35. 


THE   SUPREMACY  OF   ETHICS.  317 

Spiritualism  make  the  other  world  but  a  poor  faded 
copy  of  this,  .with  immortal  eats  and  dogs  as  well 
as  human  beings,  until  that  life  seems  more  feeble 
and  ineffectual  even  than  this.  What  reason  for  the 
perpetuation  of  an  old  worn-out  show  ?  For  my  part, 
I  would  rather  leave  death  begirt  with  all  its  solemn 
and  touching  mystery,  and  simply  trust  that  some- 
how transcendent  issues  will  be  worked  out  through 
it.  There  is  no  thought  of  reward  for  the  good  in 
what  I  say.  As  the  good  are  so  for  goodness'  sake, 
so  their  high  destiny  must  come  unbought  and  un- 
sought. 

Such  are  some  of  the  lessons  of  the  moral  senti- 
ment as  they  have  made  themselves  felt  in  my  own 
miental  experience,  and  such  is  something  of  what  I 
conceive  would  be  the  gist  and  scope  of  an  Ethical 
religion.  Ethics  is  not  a  closed  circle,  so  that  when 
one  has  forborne  to  cheat  and  paid  his  debts,  he  is 
at  the  end  of  it.  It  starts  with  the  lowest  uses  of 
earth,  but  covers  the  highest  and  widest  flights  of 
the  spirit  of  man.  To  plant  oneself  on  the  funda- 
mental verity,  and  then  allow  its  natural  suggestions 
and  implications  to  have  an  unhindered  development 
in  one's  mind  and  in  one's  life,  seems  to  me  one 
of  the  most  important  and  inspiring  tasks  of  the 
present  day. 

What  a  prospect  is  that  which  Emerson  held  out ! 
"There  will  be  a  new  church,"  he  said,  "founded  on 
moral  science  ;  at  first  cold  and  naked,  a  babe  in  a 
manger  again,  the  algebra  and  mathematics  of  ethical 
law, — the  church  of  men  to  come,  without  shawms 
or  psaltery  or  sackbut.     But  it  will  have  heaven  and 


318  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

earth  for  its  beams  and  rafters, ^  science  for  symbol 
and  illustration  ;  it  will  fast  enough  gather  beauty, 
music,  picture,  poetry.  Was  never  stoicism  so  stern 
and  exigent  as  this  shall  be.  It  shall  send  man  home 
to  his  central  solitude,  shame  these  social  supplicating 
manners,  and  make  him  know  that  much  of  the  time 
he  must  have  himself  to  his  friend.  He  shall  expect 
no  co-operation,  he  shall  walk  with  no  companion. 
The  nameless  Thought,  the  nameless  Power,  the  super- 
personal  Heart,  —  he  shall  repose  alone  on  that.  He 
needs  only  his  own  verdict.  No  good  fame  can  help, 
no  bad  fame  can  hurt  him.  The  Laws  are  his  con- 
solers ;  the  good  Laws  themselves  are  alive,  —  they 
know  if  he  have  kept  them,  they  animate  him  with 
the  leading  of  great  duty  and  an  endless  horizon."  ^ 

1  *'  Worship,-'  in  Conduct  of  Life. 


XVII. 
THE  TRUE  BASIS  OF  RELIGIOUS  UNION. 

I  HAVE  had  the  privilege  of  expressing  myself 
with  the  utmost  freedom  in  the  preceding  pages. 
It  is,  however,  one  thing  to  express  one's  views 
freely,  and  another  to  propose  them  as  a  basis  of  re- 
ligious union.  This  I  am  distinctly  unwilling  to  do. 
All  that  one  can  ask  at  the  present  time  is  that  he 
shall  be  free  to  think  and  to  express  himself,  that 
he  shall  not  be  put  under  the  ban  because  his  views 
do  not  accord  wdth  old-time  standards  ;  but  to  pro- 
pose any  new  set  of  views  ^  as  a  part  of  the  basis 
of  religious  fellowship  would  be  so  far  to  revive  the 
intolerance  of  ancient  orthodoxy. 

I  wish  to  ask  now,  not  what  is  the  truth  with  re- 
spect to  various  doctrines,  ancient  and  modern,  but 
what  should  make  the  fundamental  terms  of  fellow- 
ship in  a  religious  body  ?  This  is  an  entirely  prac- 
tical question,  though  I  am  aware  that  in  trying  to 
answer  it  I  may  develop  an  ideal  of  religious  fellow- 
ship which  has  little  or  no  relation  to  any  existing 
religious  movement.^ 

1  Mr.  Prederic  Harrison  declares  that  the  Positivist  "  bond  of 
union  is  a  real,  scientific,  demonstrable  conception  of  Nature  and 
of  man  "  (Unitarian  Review,  March,  1888,  p.  236). 

2  The  only  bodies  of  which  I  have  any  knowledge,  whose 
platforms  suggest  such  an  ideal  as  I  have  in  mind,  are  the  Free 
Religious  Association,  the  Western  Unitarian  Conference,  and  the 


320  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

In  general,  I  conceive  that  assent  should  not  be  re- 
quired in  a  religious  body  to  any  truth  about  which 
it  is  possible  for  a  thoughtful  and  good  man  to  doubt. 
The  basis  of  fellowship  should  be  so  broad  that  no 
person  striving  for  an  ideal  order  of  human  life,  no 
one  striving  to  live  blamelessly  before  conscience, 
should  be  perforce  excluded  from  it.  Hence,  assent 
to  the  doctrines  of  Catholic  or  Protestant  Christianity, 
or  even  of  pure  theism,  should  not  be  required.  No 
one  will  deny  that  serious  and  good  men  can,  and  in 
some  cases  do,  question  these  doctrines.  Shall  they, 
therefore,  be  excluded  from  the  most  sacred  of  all 
unions  between  man  and  man  ?  For  my  part,  there 
is  no  materialist  or  atheist  who  yet  loves  and  pursues 
the  goodj^who  feels  that  truth  and  honor  bind  him, 
whom  I  do  not  wish  to  call  in  the  deepest  and  most 
sacred  sense  my  brother. 

The  truth  which  it  appears  impossible  to  doubt  is 
that  duty  hinds  a  man.  Not  that  we  always  know 
our  duty,  and  not  that  we  need  always  be  sensible 
of  its  binding  force.  There  may  be  —  to  quote  from 
Wordsworth's  "  Ode  to  Duty ''  — 

Union  of  the  Societies  for  Ethical  Culture.  The  Free  Religious 
Association  aims  "  to  promote  the  practical  interests  of  pure  reli- 
gion, to  increase  fellowship  in  the  spirit,  and  to  encourage  the 
scientific  study  of  man's  religious  nature  and  history."  The  West- 
ern Unitarian  Conference  declares  its  "  fellowship  to  he  condi- 
tioned on  no  doctrinal  tests,"  and  welcomes  "all  who  wish  to  join 
us  to  help  establish  truth  and  righteousness  and  love  in  the  world." 
Tlie  aim  of  the  Ethical  Movement,  as  represented  by  the  Union, 
is  **  to  elevate  the  moral  life  of  its  members  and  that  of  the  com- 
munity ;  and  it  cordially  welcomes  to  its  fellowship  all  persons 
who  sympathize  with  this  aim,  whatever  may  be  their  theological 
or  philosophical  opinions." 


THE   TRUE   BASIS   OF   RELIGIOUS  UNION.      321 

"  Glad  hearts,  without  reproach  or  blot, 
Who  do  thy  work,  and  know  it  not ! " 

For  duty  may  become  one  with  life,  happiness,  and 
joy ;  the  antagonism  between  what  we  wish  to  do  and 
what  we  ought  to  do  may  pass  away.  Yet  duty  does 
not  cease  to  he  binding  because  it  is  no  longer  felt 
to  be.  We  may  sometimes  be  ignorant  of  duty ;  but 
when  we  learn  what  it  is,  we  know  thai!  we  are  bound 
by  it.  It  is  also  true  that  men  may  differ  in  their 
theories  of  the  ultimate  grounds  of  duty ;  but  the  fact 
of  moral  obligation  and  the  broad  outlines  of  personal 
and  social  duty  remain  under  any  theory.  The  truth 
is,  that  the  thought  of  what  ought  to  be  is  as  elemen- 
tal a  part  of  man's  being  as  the  sense  of  what  is.  It 
is  even  possible  to  be  more  clear  as  to  what  we  ought 
to  do  than  as  to  what  we  actually  have  done  or  are 
doing.  We  know  we  should  be  just :  whether  we  are 
so  or  not,  may  be  often  a  difficult  question  to  decide. 
The  thought  of  the  right  is  indeed  one  that  cannot  be 
outgrown,  that  has  entered  into  every  religion  worthy 
of  our  reverence,  that  even  the  savage  has  in  some 
half-conscious  imperfect  fashion,  that  man  can  lose 
only  as  he  loses  his  reason.  One  could  easier  drive 
the  sun  from  the  heavens  than  banish  the  moral  sen- 
timent from  the  mind  of  man.  \  can  imagine  our 
living  under  other  skies,  in  other  spheres,  and  all  the 
dear  familiar  experiences  of  this  earthly  life  no  longer 
known ;  but  without  the  moral  sentiment  we  should 
cease  even  on  the  earth  to  be  men,  and  the  sun  and 
all  the  stars  would  only  shine  on  vacancy.  We  can 
not  say,  however,  that  the  propositions  of  the  Atha- 
nasian  or  even  the  Apostles'  Creed  are  thus  rooted  in 
the  nature  of  man;  neither  can  this  be  said  of  the 

21 


322  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

theistic  or  perhaps  any  distinct  speculative  doctrine. 
A  true  religious  fellowship,  then,  would  not  oblige  as- 
sent to  any  of  these  doctrines ;  it  would  require  only 
the  recognition  that  duty  hinds  a  man. 

Positively  speaking,  the  ideal  religious  body  would 
be  a  union  of  all  those  who  owned  the  authority  of 
duty,  and  who  sought  to  live  as  duty  commands.  The 
fellowship  aimed  at  would  be  that  of  all  good  men ; 
that  is,  of  all  striving  to  be  good  and  to  advance  the 
cause  of  goodness  in  the  world.  For  the  omission  of 
a  doctrinal  basis  does  not  mean  a  "  mush  of  conces- 
sion," or  the  drowning  of  conscience  in  sentimental- 
ity. Not  because  one  is  a  human  being,  but  because 
he  strives  to  realize  the  ideal  of  humanity  in  his  life, 
and  "to  contribute  to  the  establishment  of  an  ideal 
order  of  human  life  on  the  earth,  should  he  be  wel- 
comed to  the  moral  communion.  Love  cannot  have 
fellowship  with  those  who  hate ;  just  men  cannot  be 
joined  in  sacred  union  with  tyrants  and  oppressors; 
men  who  are  trying  to  lead  pure  lives  cannot  frater- 
nize with  those  who  are  reckless  and  profligate.  Con- 
ditional for  admission  must  be  the  desire  to  purify 
oneself  of  all  that  is  unworthy,  to  live  according  to 
one's  best  ideals.  But  other  conditions  should  be  un- 
known. One  should  not  be  obliged  to  confess  himself 
a  Christian  or  to  confess  himself  a  Jew ;  the  antago- 
nisms of  Protestant  and  Catholic,  of  Evangelical  and 
Unitarian,  should  be  forgotten  ;  all  barriers  should 
pass  away  save  those  which  conscience  sets  up. 

I  am  aware  that  the  realization  of  such  an  ideal 
involves  a  great  change  in  the  habits  and  sentiments 
of  men.  It  argues  a  new  object  of  central  inter- 
est, a  new  enthusiasm,  a  new  magnanimity  blended 


THE  TRUE  BASIS  OF  RELIGIOUS  UNION.      323 

with  a  new  ardor.  It  is  not  uncommon  to  hear,  even 
in  the  most  liberal  of  Christian  denominations  (the 
Unitarian),  that  a  religious  body  must,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  have  religious  doctrines.^  It  seems  to  be 
taken  for  granted  that  good  and  earnest  men  who 
differ  intellectually  cannot  belong  to  one  fellowship, 
that  varying  theological  or  philosophical  views  are 
necessarily  more  potent  to  divide  than  moral  aims 
can  be  to  unite.  It  is  a  sad  and  saddening  opinion ; 
yet  I  am  afraid  there  is  more  in  the  religious  history 
of  the  race  to  confirm  it  than  there  is  to  encourage 
the  aim  I  cherish.  Never  has  there  been,  to  my 
knowledge,  such  a  fellowship  as  I  crave.  Men  seem 
always  to  have  been  ready  to  magnify  their  intel- 
lectual agreements  or  disagreements,  and  to  put  a 
slight  on  the  good  purpose  and  the  pure  heart.  I 
have  come  across,  indeed,  in  Matthew  Arnold's  essay 
on  "  Saint  Paul  and  Protestantism,"  ^  an  observation 
of  Epiphanius,  one  of  the  Christian  Fathers,  to  the 
effect  that  in  the  primitive  period  of  the  Church 
wickedness  was  the  only  heresy ;  that  impious  and 
pious  living  divided  the  whole  world  into  erroneous 
and  orthodox.  I  should  like  to  believe  that  this 
was  so,  and  no  doubt  there  was  some  approximation 
to  it ;  but  I  am  afraid  that  it  was  largely  an  ideal  of 
the  bishop's  mind,  transferred  to  a  time  in  regard 
to  which  he  had  imperfect  knowledge.  In  any  case, 
not  much  later  than  the  time  of  Epiphanius,  when  a 
bishop  was  charged  in  a  Church  council  with  unchas- 
tity,  the  cry  went  up,  "  What  do  we  care  about  his 
chastity?     Is  he  orthodox?  —  that  is  the  question;'' 

1  See  "  The  Unitarian/'  October,  1888,  p.  442. 

2  Page  120. 


324  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

and  again,  "Worse  than  a  Sodomite  is  he  who  will 
not  call  Mary  mother  of  God  ! ''  ^  No,  history  does 
not  give  much  encouragement  to  such  a  fellowship  as 
I  propose ;  and  as  with  morality  in  general,  the  dream 
of  a  moral  basis  of  religious  union  is  an  ideal  of  the 
heart  rather  than  anything  else.  Those  who  believe 
in  it  will  have  to  strive  for  it :  it  will  not  come  of 
itself.  Yet  it  has  on  its  side,  I  make  bold  to  say, 
the  best  instincts  of  not  a  few  men  to-day ;  the  larger 
minds  in  almost  all  the  historic  Christian  communions 
are  moving  in  this  direction,  though  they  may  be  far 
from  having  a  clear  vision  as  yet  of  the  goal.  Any 
one  who  is  impatient  with  old  walls  of  separation 
between  churches,  and  asks  that  all  who  love  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  shall  join  hands  for  united  war- 
fare against  sin  and  wrong,  really  works  in  this  di- 
rection ;  any  one  who  still  more  generously  summons 
all,  whether  Christians  or  not,  to  unite  in  the  love 
of  God  and  the  service  of  man,  really  works  in  this 
direction.  Yes,  both  are  prophets,  however  uncon- 
sciously, of  that  grander  fellowship  to  come,  which 
shall  include  all  who,  whatever  their  differences  in 
the  past  and  whatever  their  intellectual  differences 
still,  are  ready  to  work  together  to  put  down  the  evil 
and  to  enthrone  the  good  in  the  world. 

Let  me  now  state  a  little  more  distinctly  what  a 
moral  basis  of  fellowship  would  involve. 

First,  it  would  not  necessitate  the  giving  up  of  any 
theological  or  philosophical  beliefs  which  one  might 
hold  dear.  Because  one's  beliefs  are  not  made  a  part 
of  the  bond  of  union  does  not  mean  that  one  shall 

1  See  an  article  bj^  Rev.  Dr.  F.  H.  Hedge,  in  Tlie  Unitarian 
Review,  January,  1884,  p.  14. 


THE   TRUE   BASIS   OF   RELIGIOUS   UNION.     325 

not  be  free  to  hold  them.  If  one  found  satisfaction  in 
the  theistic  theory  of  the  universe,  he  should  be  free 
to  cherish  it ;  if  one  felt  compelled  to  be  an  agnostic 
as  to  the  nature  of  Deity,  or  if  one  took  materialistic 
ground,  he  should  be  equally  free.  The  aim  of  the 
fellowship  would  not  be  to  make  theists  or  materi- 
alists or  agnostics,  but  to  confirm  the  good  purpose 
in  the  soul,  to  make  good  citizens,  good  fathers  and 
mothers,  to  make  lovers  of  justice  and  haters  of  all 
wrong.  If  one  wished  to  keep  company  only  with 
those  of  his  own  creed,  he  would  of  course  not  enter 
the  body  ;  but  the  body  would  not  exclude  him :  he 
would  simply,  by  the  narrow  range  of  his  sympathies, 
exclude  himself.  One  would  not  have  to  renounce 
Christianity  nor  Judaism  in  entering  the  fellowship ; 
his  entering  would  simply  involve  a  willingness  to 
live  on  terms  of  brotherhood  with  others  w^ho  might 
not  be  Christians  or  Jews  ;  that  is,  he  would  give 
up  Christianity  or  Judaism  as  the  basis  of  religious 
fellowship. 

Secondly,  the  free  expression  of  theological  or  philo- 
sophical opinions  w^ould  not  be  prevented  any  more 
than  the  holding  of  them.  It  might  even  happen  that 
those  who  were  drawn  together  by  the  affinity  of  in- 
tellectual conviction  would  form  subordinate  groups, 
just  as  those  who  were  united  in  holding  to  certain 
practical  solutions  of  the  problem  of  society  might  do 
the  same.  Uniformity  is  not  to  be  expected  nor  de- 
sired ;  uniformity  is  apt  to  be  the  high  road  to  spirit- 
ual death,  while  unity  in  variety  means  life.  The 
only  necessity  would  be  that  no  group  should  make 
so  much  of  its  peculiar  views  and  aims  that  it  would 
be  in  danger  of  losing  sympathy  and  the  sense  of 


826  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

union  with  the  body  at  large.  One  fellowship  with 
many  branches,  one  body  with  many  members,  one 
subtle  life-blood  running  through  the  whole  and  mak- 
ing every  part  kin  to  every  other,  —  that  would  be 
the  ideal  of  a  true  religious  fellowship. 

Hence,  thirdly,  a  new  meaning  would  attach  to 
heresy  in  connection  with  such  a  fellowship.  That 
word,  I  well  know,  is  no  longer  covered  with  oppro- 
brium. Men  who  have  stood  faithful  to  the  light 
that  was  in  them,  and  have  refused  for  the  sake  of 
life  itself  to  be  untrue  to  it,  have  made  heresy  almost 
glorious.  Apart,  however,  from  its  historical  associa- 
tions, the  meaning  of  heresy  is  simply  separation :  a 
heretic  is  one  who  is  separated,  or  separates  himself, 
from  a  religious  body.  Whether  heresy  is  honorable 
or  dishonorable  depends,  then,  on  the  attitude  of  the 
religious  body  in  question.  The  Christian  Church  has 
not  allowed  liberty  of  thought,  save  within  compara- 
tively narrow  limits ;  it  has  even  decreed  from  time 
to  time  that  certain  ideas  were  to  be  accepted  on  pain 
of  eternal  damnation.  The  Church  has  thus  become 
to  many  minds  a  very  emblem  of  intolerance.  A 
fundamental  principle,  however,  of  the  ideal  religious 
fellowship  I  have  in  mind  would  be  freedom  of  be- 
lief; the  body  should  neither  decree  nor  prescribe, 
nor  in  any  way  stand  for,  an}^  set  of  theological  or 
philosophical  opinions.  The  query  might  arise,  would 
not  heresy  cease  to  have  any  meaning  in  connection 
with  such  a  body  ?  It  certainly  would,  in  the  cus- 
tomary sense  of  the  word.  There  would  be  neither 
necessity  nor  motive  for  any  one  to  leave  the  body, 
to  the  end  of  gaining  liberty  of  thought  or  utterance. 
But  suppose  that  another  set  of  motives  should  arise. 


THE  TRUE   BASIS  OF  RELIGIOUS  UNION.      327 

Suppose  that  the  theistic  members  of  the  body  should 
say,  "Our  theism  has  become  so  precious  to  us  that 
we  cannot  hold  out  any  longer  the  fraternal  hand  to 
materialists  or  agnostics.''  Suppose  that  agnostics  or 
materialists  should  say,  "We  cannot  have  patience 
with  theism  ;  it  is  an  antiquated,  exploded  doctrine, 
and  we  must  refuse  to  fraternize  with  those  who  cling 
to  it."  Suppose  a  socialistic  group  should  say,  "  Indi- 
vidualists must  necessarily  be  without  heart  or  con- 
science ;  "  or  that  individualists  ^  should  retort  that 
socialists  must  be  bad  men.  In  any  of  these  cases, 
the  fundamental  bond  of  union  of  the  religious  body 
would  be  assailed ;  each  and  every  group  which  thus 
withdrew  and  formed  a  new  body  would  be,  in  the 
literal  sense  of  the  word,  heretical.  Instead  of  stand- 
ing for  freedom,  heresy  would  thus  stand  for  the  spirit 
of  intolerance.  The  heretic  would  be  one  who  re- 
fused to  concede  to  others  the  same  rights  he  claimed 
for  himself ;  who  said  in  effect.  "  I  am  determined 
that  all  others  shall  think  as  I  do,  and  if  they  do  not, 
I  will  have  no  part  or  lot  with  them." 

No  one  has  argued  more  finely  against  the  secta- 
rian, dissenting  spirit  than  the  late  Matthew  Arnold. 
"  The  dissidence  of  dissent  and  the  protestantism  of 
the  Protestant  religion"  was  the  object  of  his  deli- 
cate and  yet  merciless  satire.  The  various  dissenting 
bodies  in  England  were  for  the  most  part  "  hole-and- 
corner"  churches,  out  of  relation  to  the  great  common 
religious  life  of  the  English  nation.     His  argument 

^  I  am  aware  that  all  these  minor  classifications  are  somewhat 
arbitrary,  and  beg  that  they  shall  be  taken  simply  as  attempts  to 
illustrate  the  principle  I  am  seeking  to  elucidate,  not  as  necessary 
implications  of  it. 


328  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

was  only  vitiated  by  the  assumption  that  the  Church 
of  England  was  representative  of  that  nation's  com- 
mon religious  life.  He  called  it  "a  national  associa- 
tion for  the  promotion  of  goodness.'*  It  is  in  truth 
not  only  that,  but  an  association  equally  well  for 
the  promotion  of  the  ideas  embodied  in  the  Apos- 
tles' and  Nicene,  not  to  say  the  Athanasian,  creeds. 
But  though  in  judgment  he  was  wrong,  his  ideal  was 
right.  There  should  be  an  association  in  every  na- 
tion for  the  promotion  of  goodness,  —  one  that  would 
gather  to  itself  all  the  elements  in  the  nation  ready 
to  work  for  that  high  end  :  whether  it  should  have 
any  official  connection  with  the  political  organization 
of  the  nation  is  another  matter;  I  think  not.  And 
when  a  genuine  and  all-inclusive  society  of  this  nature 
does  arise,  whether  in  England  or  elsewhere,  then  all 
that  Mr.  Arnold  so  eloquently  said  of  the  spirit  of 
dissent  will  hold  good.  Then  the  separate  churches 
that  may  be  set  up  by  the  theistic  or  agnostic  or  so- 
cialistic or  individualistic  sects  will  be  justly  called 
"hole-and-corner"  churches;  but,  I  must  add,  not  till 
that  day.  Almost  all  the  dissenting  churches  in  Eng- 
land, and  almost  all  the  separate  denominations  in 
this  country,  have  had  an  excuse  for  being ;  they  have 
arisen,  because  freedom  in  the  mother-churches  from 
which  they  separated  was  not  allowed.  Better  dis- 
order and  confusion  and  an  infinite  number  of  "hole- 
and-corner"  churches  than  despotism  and  iron  law. 
When  a  better  day  shall  dawn,  however,  and  a  reli- 
gious order  with  liberty  —  making,  indeed,  a  principle 
of  liberty  —  shall  arise  on  the  earth,  then  only  could 
narrowness  and  bigotry,  the  very  spirit  of  schism  and 
odious  heresy,  lead  to  separation  from  it. 


THE   TRUE  BASIS   OF   RELIGIOUS  UNION.     329 

Fourthly,  it  would  follow  that  through  the  entire 
body,  and  in  all  its  groups  and  local  branches,  more 
should  be  made  of  the  common  aims  and  ideals  of  the 
body  than  of  anything  else.  A  theistic  branch  which 
made  more  of  theism  than  of  the  love  and  practice  of 
goodness,  would  be  forgetting  its  function  as  a  branch 
of  the  general  body,  and  in  danger  of  becoming  sec- 
tarian. A  materialistic  group  which  gave  itself  up  to 
expositions  of  materialistic  philosophy,  would  be  in 
similar  danger.  Varying  philosophical  views  or  eco- 
nomic aims  could  only  make  a  kind  of  atmosphere  in 
each  group  or  branch,  but  could  not  take  the  form  of 
a  creed  or  binding  statement.  The  basis  of  local  fel- 
lowship should  be  the  same  as  the  basis  of  the  gen- 
eral fellowship ;  nothing  should  be  required  anywhere 
which  was  not  required  everywhere.  In  other  words, 
the  questions  of  personal  and  social  morality  should 
have  the  first  (I  do  not  say,  the  only)  claim  on  the 
attention  of  every  branch  or  local  organization.  If 
from  any  meeting  some  one  should  not  go  away  with 
clearer  light  as  to  duty,  or  with  some  fresh  impulse 
toward  the  ideal  life,  the  holding  of  that  meeting 
would  be  well-nigh  vain.  Duty  is  not  a  formula,  it 
is  a  life ;  it  is  as  full,  as  many-sided,  as  exhaustless 
as  life,  —  yes,  it  is  often  as  perplexing  as  are  many 
of  the  situations  of  life.  There  are  few  men  who 
do  not  sometimes  crave  light,  or  help  and  inspira- 
tion to  follow  the  light  they  already  have.  Eight 
living  is  in  one  sense  the  most  natural  thing  to 
man ;  in  another,  it  is  at  times  a  most  difficult  and 
arduous  thing,  and  seems  to  require  almost  super- 
human watchfulness  and  strength.  Those  most  hon- 
est with  themselves  are  the  aptest  to  feel  that  the 


330  ETHICAL   RELIGION. 

better  part  of  them  is  not  what  they  are,  but  what 
they  aspire  to  be.  As  for  our  actual  selves,  some 
of  us  know  we  are  self-conscious,  anxious  for  notice, 
tickled  with  applause,  without  seriousness,  and  good 
only  by  impulse.  Others  know  they  are  proud,  glo- 
rying in  mastery  and  in  having  others  obedient  to 
them.  Others  still  are  full  of  irrational  aversions 
and  prejudices,  and  scarcely  try  to  let  the  calm,  puri- 
fying light  of  reason  penetrate  their  minds.  Some 
are  sensual,  and  others  are  close  and  ungenerous. 
Then  in  the  realm  of  social  morality,  how  we  floun- 
der !  We  know  that  selfishness  as  a  principle  is  dis- 
organizing and  anarchic,  and  yet  our  industrial  order 
is  to  a  great  extent  founded  on  it,  and  we  think  it 
is  all  right !  We  call  it  in  the  abstract  a  devilish 
maxim,  that  every  one  should  look  out  for  himself, 
and  woe  betide  the  hindmost ;  yet  in  our  business  re- 
lations we  are  apt  to  act  upon  it,  and  there  are  those 
who  can  scarcely  imagine  business  being  conducted  on 
any  other  basis.  Ethics,  the  principles  of  justice  and 
love,  are  pooh-poohed,  when  they  are  sought  to  be 
applied  in  this  realm  ;  to  advocate  them  is  thought 
to  be  sentimentalism  or,  at  best,  philanthropy.  The 
religious  world  is  divided  into  theological  camps, 
when  it  ought  to  be  a  unit  in  devising  a  plan  of 
peace  and  brotherhood  for  the  industrial  life  of  soci- 
ety. It  is  not  enough  to  preach  the  Golden  Rule;  it 
is  necessary  to  say  what  the  Golden  Eule  means.  To 
hold  up  more  elevated  ideals  of  personal  and  social 
life,  to  create  and  to  sustain  an  enthusiasm  for  them, 
to  lift  life  actually  to  higher  levels,  —  this  would 
be  the  sovereign  and  the  central  mission  of  a  true 
religious  body. 


THE   TRUE   BASIS  OF  RELIGIOUS   UNION.     331 

But  is  all  this  religion,  it  may  be  asked?  Is  it 
not  morality  ?  I  answer,  that  for  my  own  part  it  is 
impossible  to  distinguish  between  them.  Morality 
is  only  true  morality  when  it  is  given  religious  con- 
secration, and  religion  is  first  a  truly  sacred  thing 
when  it  becomes  an  exalted  moral  enthusiasm.  I  am 
aware  that,  historically,  religion  arose  independently 
of  morality,  —  as,  happily,  morality  arose  indepen- 
dently of  religion.  But  the  deepest  thing,  the  root- 
thing  in  religion  was  not  so  much  any  peculiar  object 
to  which  the  religious  sentiment  went  out,  as  the 
feeling  that  the  object  was  sacred.  It  is  reverence 
and  awe  that  make  the  heart  of  religion.  Whoever 
holds  to  something  as  sacred,  has  a  religion  or  the 
elements  of  one.  It  is  a  mistake  to  bind  up  religion 
with  any  special  theory  of  the  universe ;  he  who  con- 
sciously has  no  theory  may  yet  be  religious,  if,  as  he 
turns  his  mind  this  way  and  that,  it  falls  sooner  or 
later  on  something  that  strikes  him  with  indescriba- 
ble awe  and  reverence.  Duty  —  the  thought  of  the 
laws  under  which  we  live,  of  their  inviolable  nature, 
of  their  supreme  authority,  in  obedience  to  which  is 
safety  and  life  and  joy,  and  in  departing  from  which 
we  stray  into  darkness  and  the  night  —  may  as  truly 
excite  awe  as  did  the  phenomena  of  Nature,  the 
powers  of  earth  and  sky,  which  first  enchained  the 
attention  of  the  forefathers  of  the  race.  The  reli- 
gion of  morality  may  be  as  real  and  as  sacred  as 
the  religion  of  Nature,  of  which  almost  all  histori- 
cal religions  are  varied  forms.  The  most  perfect  re- 
ligion, to  my  own  mind,  would  be  a  blending  of  the 
religion  of  morality  and  the  religion  of  Nature  into 
an  ideal  unity. 


332  ETHICAL  RELIGION. 

But  whether  such  a  fellowship  as  I  have  sketched 
the  ideal  of,  would  be  colled  religious  or  not  is  a 
comparatively  unimportant  matter.  It  might  not  call 
itself  religious,  conscious  of  the  uncertainty  and  am- 
biguity in  the  current  use  of  that  term ;  and  there 
would  be  no  harm  in  this.  But  what  it  should  he^ 
whether  it  was  faithful  to  its  ideal  or  not,  —  on  this 
everything  would  depend. 


University  Press  :  John  Wilson  &  Son,  Cambridge. 


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